So I'm guessing anyone actually taking the time to read this is tag, is by now, muttering something along the lines of 'when %$ &#** is she going to get to the point of this whole story?' I did, after all mention in the summary that I was wondering about the grazes and bruises that had magically appeared on Dean's face somewhere between 7.02 Hello Cruel World and 7.03 The Girl Next Door. And I am getting to that.

So FINALLY…

Usually the gentle rocking and swaying of a vehicle lulled Dean into a sense of safety and security – had ever since home ceased to be a house in Lawrence, Kansas, and was replaced by a sleek, black Chevy Impala. Not this time. Every bump and turn, even the constant vibration of travel sent shockwaves of pain erupting up through his leg.

He was in Hell all over again.

Dean was almost content to allow the pain to tip him over the edge into unconsciousness. In fact he would have welcomed the relief, except that Sam was still more out of it than not. Sam had come to a few times, moaning softly and staring off into oblivion like he was stoned or something, but never really showing any kind of awareness. Trent had reassured Dean that it was probably a good sign, at least that he was semi-conscious. Dean just wanted him to stay that way.

"Come on Sam, wake up man," he urged his brother, fighting to remain conscious himself.

All he could do was focus on Sam, and Sam alone, in hopes that concentrating on him would also block out his pain. Pain that had been relentless and unwavering, and not in the least submitting to his sheer determination for it to subside. So he lay there muttering continually to his brother, trying to have him wake up and return his resolute focus. But every bump in the road, every turn was blasting him with more pain that at times had his vision black out. So he wasn't quite sure he'd actually heard right when he blinked away the wooziness of another near black-out.

"Yeah, I've got two males. One with head trauma, one with an open, compound, tibia fracture, on route to Sioux Falls," the EMT relayed on his two-way radio.

"Huh?" Dean muttered, not sure he could believe his distorted awareness. "D'ya say?" He dragged his groggy gaze from Sam and stared up at the EMT. He attempted to blink away the harassing pain, tried to fight the increasing nausea and the threat of unconsciousness, to concentrate on the conversation the paramedic was having with whoever was on the other end of his two-way radio. However by the time he could get everything into focus the EMT was busy replacing Sam's oxygen mask with a nasal cannula. Maybe he hadn't heard anything at all, maybe it was just the pain and Sam's condition making him hear stuff – kind of like Sam seeing Lucifer all the time…

He figured the pain was probably making him all loopy and light headed. That and a tight left-hand turn. The paramedics had his leg pretty well immobilized in a splint, but even the slightest movement sent eruptions of pain hammering up his leg. Dean yelped in pain again when the ambulance took the sharp corner and his leg shifted and twisted ever so slightly.

"Come on buddy, let me give you something for the pain," Trent urged Dean, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze in encouragement, "trust me, you'll thank me for it. We're not gonna give you any medals for self-inflicted suffering."

"Gotta make sure Sam's ok first." Dean explained. "Can't knock me out."

"I can give you something that'll just take the edge off. Ok?" the EMT urged, "something mild, something that's not going to knock you out."

After the initial adrenalin high had worn off – pretty much at the same time the ambulance had finally turned up – the pain from his busted leg had hit him like a freight train, accompanied by a decent dose of shock after actually seeing bone jutting out of his upper calf. How he'd managed to drag Sammy's lifeless, gargantuan ass as far as he had, he had no idea. But he'd flatly refused all offers of pain relief. With the Leviathan obviously lurking around – and Dean had no doubt they were the ones responsible for torching Bobby's house – he had to keep watch. So he'd refused the pain meds, because he had to keep Sam safe and to do that he had to keep himself conscious.

Now they were safely tucked away in the ambulance, well away from the Leviathan. Sam was going to get the help he needed. And, Dean realized, he was dangerously close to actually passing out from the pain. And he couldn't afford to pass out – again.

Another turn, and a pot hole later and Dean had practically embedded his fingernails into the gurney permanently. He gasped in agony, and blinked away the growing cloud of black swamping his vision. And then the darkness won, if only for a minute or two.

He came back to with a start, shocked by the bright lights of the ambulance and Trent leaning over him with a concerned scowl on his brow. "Hey, Dean, you with me?" he asked, taking his pulse. "That's it, Dean, breathe, nice and slow."

"Happened?" Dean moaned, wondering how long he'd been out.

"You fought the pain, but the pain won," Trent explained, "Dean seriously, you don't have to be in so much agony. You want to make sure your brother's ok don't you? Can't do that when you pass out with the pain."

Unfortunately, Dean had to finally admit defeat. Trent was right. Dean gave the EMT a token smile, and finally followed the guy's advice. He nodded in acquiescence. "Won't knock me out?" he asked – because he had to be sure.

"No, make you a little light headed maybe, but it won't knock you out," The EMT promised him. "Just enough to take the edge off, all right?"

"Just dull the pain?" That's all he needed, just enough to keep him conscious and coherent.

"Yeah, " Trent replied, "it won't take it away completely, but it'll sure make you a hell of lot more comfortable. You don't have to keep suffering like this."

Another bump in the road and another explosion of pain finally tipped Dean over his pain threshold. "Yeah, ok." All of a sudden Dean couldn't wait for the pain to stop. Trent couldn't give it to him fast enough! Dean watched in anticipation as the paramedic measured out a dose of the analgesic into a syringe. Trent folded the blanket back across his chest whilst Dean offer up his arm.

Dean winced with the initial sting of the drugs as Trent gave him the injection, but welcomed the relief a few minutes later. The sensation was akin to the heavens opening up and shining down on him as a wave of serene nothingness washed over him. As his pain subsided he could feel as it was replaced by a slightly light-headed numbness seeping through his body. Just like the EMT had promised the pain wasn't gone completely, but thankfully the residual ache was bearable. He cursed himself for not having relented earlier.

"Hmmm… 's good stuff," Dean admitted, realizing that he actually felt more lucid, now that his consciousness wasn't mired by pain.

"Sure is." The EMT patted his shoulder again to congratulate him for his smart decision. Both the EMT and Dean resumed their concerned vigil over Sam when he gave a soft moan before blinking lethargically, and coming groggily back to. Trent immediately checked his vital signs again, looking concerned by Sam's rising blood pressure.

Sam struggled to open his eyes, the bright light sending sharp shards of pain into his skull. A constant squealing noise was hacking through his pounding head like a chainsaw – a siren maybe. He had absolutely no recollection of what had happened, his memory was entirely shattered. All he knew was that his head felt like it had been smashed open, his brains put through a meat-mincer and then shoveled back into his skull. Fuck it hurt! But as his eyelids obstinately fluttered open Dean's face came into focus and he knew he was ok.

He was lying on his back, covered with a blanket and everything was rocking like they were in motion. An ambulance he figured, which accounted for the wailing siren and the cool breeze of oxygen up his nose.

"Sam, stay with me, you hear?" Dean commanded, hoping this time Sam would heed his order. Sam had come to several times only to fade away just as quickly.

Trent checked Sam's pupils and immediately looked anxious. Dean sensed the EMT's growing apprehension only to have them confirmed when the paramedic relayed his concerns on the two-way. "Male, late twenties, head trauma. Signs of intracranial pressure."

Dean almost felt relieved when Sam gave him a momentary gaze, with what looked like recognition – maybe this time he really would stay with him. But then Sam's eyes widened in terror and glared towards the back of the ambulance. Dean couldn't see what it was that his brother saw, but chances were it was Lucifer, still plaguing him, even now, even with his head all scrambled…

Sam, although groggy was mesmerized by movement down by his feet. He looked up to see Lucifer standing over him, glaring smugly down at him. 'Hey, so maybe I'm not real. Nobody's perfect. And I'm not going anywhere, Sam.' Lucifer shrugged his shoulders and smirked with pleasure.

'NO!' Sam thought, panicking, as images of being caged with the fallen angel in hell and every torture Lucifer had ever inflicted upon him flashed before his eyes. His breath caught in his throat and his heart rate escalated in terror and then everything tunneled in around him. Briefly he felt his muscles tense with painful cramps and then everything blacked out.

Dean could only look on in horror as Sam started to seize. "Sam? Sammy!" Who needed pain killers when the mere adrenalin and shock of seeing your brother go rigid and convulse totally obliterated all awareness of injury. Talk about sobering up in an instant! He didn't need to be told that Sam's condition was dire.

Then the paramedic confirmed his fears when he relayed the information to whomever he was communicating with on his two-way, "Yeah, he's seizing. Copy that. We're just pulling into Sioux Falls."

"Sioux Falls? Sioux Falls General?" and now Dean really panicked. Sioux Falls General! Exactly the one place he knew they really shouldn't be going to, not after Bobby confirmed they had a healthy outbreak of Leviathan setting up their own gourmet all-you-can-eat buffet there. "No, no, no. No, you gotta take us somewhere else, anywhere. Please."

The paramedic gave Dean an incredulous glance, amazed by how pain and medication could screw with people's heads. "Yeah, okay, buddy," he humored his latest patient and then Trent began to check Sam's vitals again.

Dean could see that the guy wasn't taking him seriously. He slammed his head back against the pillow in frustration. He had to get them the hell outta there. He had to save Sam, because Sam sure as hell couldn't save himself. His seizure may have stopped, but instead he was back to being flat-out unconscious again. Dean tried to sit up, in order to get himself and Sammy the hell out of there.

"Hey, stop it!" the paramedic slapped his hand over Dean's chest and prevented him from moving. "Lie back down, you don't want to go falling onto the floor, do you?"

"I… we gotta go!" If he could get himself up he could drag his screwed up brother to safety – he'd done it before.

"You gotta go to the hospital. Your leg is broken, and you've lost a lot of blood. It's ok, the pain meds can make you feel all hyper-emotional. It's ok, you'll be ok. But you're not going anywhere on that leg. Relax, we're almost there."

"No, no, no…" Dean made a last attempt to free himself.

"Calm down, it's ok. We're here now, take it easy," the EMT placed a firm hand on his shoulder and pinned him to the gurney, "you're in good hands."

As the ambulance made its way towards the Emergency Bay, Sam came around again. He was groggy and disorientated, still suffering the draining effects of the seizure. "Hey, Sammy, you with us?" Dean was hopeful that he finally was. "Come on Sam, talk to me."

Sam's eyes rolled about, clumsily inspecting his surroundings until they fixed on the ambulance roof to his left where Dean was standing above him, grinning down at him like a Cheshire cat.

'Hey Sammy Boy, nice nap?' Dean smirked.

Sam was confused, his gaze dropped downwards from Dean's smug smirk to… to Dean's concerned gaze.

"Sammy? Stay with me, man, stay with me," the Dean beside him said.

Sam's attention yo-yoed from one Dean to the other, knowing at least one of them wasn't really there. It made his head spin, and throb. His brain felt like it was about to explode and ooze out of his ears.

"Sam, look at me!" one of the Deans said, the one lying beside him… where? Where the hell was he again? He just couldn't remember. Wherever it was, it was small, confined, and too damned bright. Sam tugged the blanket off his chest and woozily sat up, getting agitated when his sense of balance escaped him.

"Hey, calm down," some strange guy was telling him, trying to hold him down. "It's ok, you're ok!"

'Hey, Sammy. You gonna let him get away with that?' One of the Dean's demanded. 'You gonna let him push you around, Sammy? Gonna let him hurt you some more, maybe eat you?'

Dean was right, who the hell was this guy? Sam had no idea, he had no idea where he was, but he sure as hell knew he didn't want to be restrained. "Don't touch me!" Sam managed to swivel around to shove the strange guy away, slamming him into the wall behind.

Dean watched in horror as Sam garnered inhuman strength and managed to swing around and effectively shove the paramedic into the ambulance wall. Trent wasn't exactly knocked out, but he was damned well dazed. Dean knew he had to intervene, he had to calm Sam down before something in his screwed-up noggin really exploded.

"Hey, Sammy, calm down, it's ok!" Dean pleaded, holding a beseeching hand up, "everything's ok."

The other Dean was cheering him on, 'Atta boy, let out the rage, Sammy. Rip his fucking head off!'

Sam gazed from one Dean to the other, confusion spinning in his head like a carousel. The Dean standing above him was yelling at him. 'Who the hell is he to tell you to calm down, Sammy? Where the hell are they taking you? Bet they're both freaking Big-Mouthed Leviathan… they want to eat your brains Sammy. In fact I think they've already started to… Does your head hurt Sam, from where they gnawed into your skull?'

Sam grabbed at his pounding head, wished the stabbing ache would just stop so he could think straight… Fuck! Had they really started to eat his brains?

The first Dean was trying to reach out and touch him, bending across the small space between them like a freak-show contortionist. Dean, if it really was Dean, had to squirm awkwardly across the gurney to reach him. He hissed as he did so, barely able to move at all and his face scrunched up in a grotesque, scowling moan. And Sam knew: his Dean didn't move like that, his Dean was all fluid and sublime, not stilted and confined like this. And his brother never looked at him like that, not with an expression that oozed with panic and pain and so much emotion…

"No!" Sam's gaze darted about the ambulance in a panicked frenzy.

Dean saw the terror welling in his brother and the telling signs that Sam was about to explode. Sam's mouth pinched tight and he had a look in his eye that Dean knew all too well meant that his baby brother was about to go postal.

With his injured leg pushed to the back of his thoughts Dean hoisted the cumbersome splint off the gurney, wincing when it thudded to the floor and sent a sharp blast of hurt up his leg. He hissed in pain but continued his endeavor and reached across to his brother. He grabbed a firm hold of Sam's shirt just as much to pin his brother down as to keep himself from falling completely onto the ambulance floor. "Hey, it's ok Sam, it's ok!" he tried to pacify his brother, whilst wrestling him back down onto the gurney.

"Get away! You're not him!" Sam yelled, trying to pry his brother's hands from his shirt and thrashing about whilst Dean tried to keep him still. "Don't, don't touch me!"

"It's me, Sam!" Dean screamed back at him, "it's me! I'm right here, Sam! Stone number one, remember Sam?"

'No, I'm right here Sam!' the other Dean said, bending over the first Dean and making a grossed-out expression, 'I'm stone number one! Right here. Seriously, look at him, he's a Black-goo-oozing Big Mouth… Or maybe he's Lucifer doing a damned awful impersonation!'

Sam glared up at him in terror. Everything was wrong. And his head hurt, and it made thinking so much harder. All he knew was that something was wrong – really, really wrong. Someone, or something was in his head, screwing with his thoughts and pulverizing his brain. One Dean was standing by the gurney by his feet, laughing in amusement. 'Oh, now that's not me, so who can it be? He's gonna try and kill you Sam, otherwise he'd let you go.' And he was right there, this other Dean was practically on top of him, holding him down. Surely it couldn't be Dean, not his Dean. His Dean wouldn't try to pin him down like this. Sam didn't know if either of them was really Dean. Maybe neither of them were. Dean's grip on his shoulder tightened, and he was yelling something at him, only Sam couldn't quite make out what over the rushing of blood in his ears. Was Dean really going to eat him? Eat his brains out? No, he didn't have a huge gapping mouth… Lucifer, it had to be Lucifer, screwing with his head again.

He knew one way to find out. See if he bled black goo…

"NO!" Sam screamed, smacking his fist into the side of his captor's face, knocking the Dean impersonator senseless.

With only one functioning leg and a shit load of pain erupting from the other, Dean was easily beaten down onto the floor. He remained half-frozen in an agonized state of shock and unable to protect himself. Before he could peel himself up off the ground, a second blow pummeled into the side of his head, smashing his cheek into the floor. It was followed by another, and another and then oblivion swallowed him whole.

Sam's blinding rage exploded like a time bomb.

And the other Dean was cheering him on. 'Atta boy, Sammy, bash his brains in! Kill the fucker!' Dean was laughing, enjoying every blow he laid into the first Dean. Dean who was still out for the count and now bleeding… Red, he bled red – so not a Leviathan. Must mean he was Lucifer, it had to be Lucifer, screwing with his head again! And it hurt: really, really hurt. His head was going to explode! He had to stop him. He had to kill him. This was the first time he'd been able to lay a hand on the douche bag, or shut the fucker up! Lucifer, asshat that he was, actually thought he could masquerade around with Dean's face again – only he showed him! Finally Lucifer was out cold!

"Jesus!" the stranger cried out, having come back to his senses. The man in uniform grabbed Sam by the arm. Before he could fight him off again, Sam felt a slight pinch in his bicep and everything started to grow hazy. The other Dean blinked in and out like a poorly tuned television station, still laughing victoriously until he disappeared altogether.

Sam forgot why he was on the offensive, except that he knew something was wrong… he just wasn't quite sure what it was.

Drug-induced unconsciousness finally subdued the panicked hunter.

~~~oooOOOooo~~~

Dean gazed up through a foggy haze. Above him were some incredibly bright lights – way too bright. Everything was hazy and blurry-like, all muddled and weird. Some men were standing over him… it was like three guys that all looked exactly the same, and then they all kind of blurred in together, like they were one and the same. 'Huh!' They were all even wearing the same glasses.

And there was talking, not that he could really make out what was being said.

'Coming around… stand by on…'

And on the other side, some other guy was standing over him too. What the hell was going on?

'Hold him down…'

"Hey," Dean muttered, wanting to find out where he was.

'Three… two… one… set!'

"Aaaaaargh!" Fuck that hurt! Dean sat bolt upright when they tried to rip his leg off, pretty sure they'd succeeded. Clarity returned in an instance with the brick wall of pain that crashed down upon him.

"Nurse," some woman in white called out. At the same time the blurry figures by his side manhandled him back down onto the bed.

Crap, he'd kill 'em! He'd kill them all… and fuck his leg hurt!

"Just relax,'" the woman said to him, kind of ordered him actually. She had a white coat on, with an ID card swinging off the pocket. She looked all important. Doctor maybe. And she was messing with his leg, or what was left of it.

What the hell were they doing, and why… and… "Where am I?" Dean muttered, his mouth felt all dry and tasted peculiar and yet strangely familiar.

"You're at the hospital," she replied.

Yep, that's what it tasted like – hospital. "Which one?" Dean had to know and he had a really bad feeling about just which one.

"Sioux Falls General."

Yep, a really, really bad feeling! He had to go, had to find… and then there was an icy chill running up his arm. He glanced to his left, and what was that guy doing? The orderly, or the nurse, whoever the hell he was, was injecting something into a tube… into an IV line and… and it was attached to his arm… and it kind of made him feel… weird… and all woozy again...

No way! Fucking morphine!

"Where's my brother? We got to go," Dean muttered. Anywhere but Sioux Falls. He had to go before the opiate kicked in.

"He bashed his head quite seriously," the doctor replied, "he's gone up for an MRI."

'Fuck!' Sammy was having a head scan! Man the jokes he'd be able to… wait a minute – Sam! He had to go… they had to… and, he was getting all lightheaded. Where was he again? Dean gazed up at the woman again. She looked like she should be nice, despite the prim and proper attire and the professional hair-style. Was she going to eat him now? Maybe she was planning on starting with his leg…

"Ok. I got to go," Dean tried to escape the 'touchy-feely' orderlies that continued to try and hold him down. Only they were so much stronger than he was. The guy with the identical twin brothers beside him slammed him back down onto the bed. Dean was really gonna kill him… them.

"You're not going anywhere on this leg, buddy. Relax," the doctor informed him, checking the pulse to his foot

Dean gazed down at his leg, the one they'd tried to rip off… 'Huh!' It looked like it was still there. That was good, meant he could go find Sammy… get the hell outta there…"Aargh…" If only he could… "Ummm…" He'd just have to… and… just… in a minute… so nice and warm… and soft… and… man those lights are really bright… damned that morphine was good!

Everything lost its edge, the talking was all muddled again and the pain evaporated. The lights dimmed and then all there was, was the pitch black darkness of oblivion…

THE END

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed my take on some missing scenes between 'Hello Cruel World' and 'The Girl Next Door'.

Chrissymi.