"Sammy. Wake up." Dean shouted now, flicking his brother's face lightly with the back of his hand. "Sammy!"

A gasp for breath rushed in and out as Sam surged back to life now, jerking half upright in the passenger's seat, gagging as he pulled the bitter, burning slime of a tube out of his throat with an impossibly heavy hand.

"D—Dean?" he rasped.

"I'm here." Dean said, "Now you just lie back, OK? You were yelling and crap in your sleep, and, well, that's really annoying, is all."

"Wh—where are we?" He choked out, his tongue clumsy in his mouth, which still tasted strangely of a burning metallic, as he tried to make sense of the scrambled remains of his memory.

"We're on our way to Vegas," Dean said, staring out what Sam now understood to be the windshield of the Impala. They were driving... "You've been in bad shape for a few days now. But relax. We're gonna stop at a truck stop soon, and you can get out and get something to eat if you're up to it."

"Wh—"

"What?" Dean said brusquely. "I already told ya, man, you were out for a few days."

"What—what happened?" Sam pressed.

"Oh, yeah, well, I wouldn't expect you to remember too much right now. Those Djinn nearly had you there."

"Djinn? But, I could have sworn…" He trailed off, the memory of a deep, burning pain in his wrists, yelling, bangs, gunshots, and blinding lights, and the image of a huge blue box all blurring in his mind.

"You sure? Because if that was Djinn, then that was a really weird dream to have."

"Yeah, they seemed to be a different version, maybe a different form of their elixir stuff. I dunno. I'm not the Sandman. Or maybe you were fighting it this time. Second time's the charm, right?" Dean dismissed Sam's question with a jerk of his shoulder. "You barely came out alive, though. So just chill. "

They pulled in under the glare of streetlights, which pierced his vision, blinding at first, Sam closed his eyes to allow his vision to adjust. When he opened them again, he could tolerate it a little better.

"Yeah, so you comin' in or what?" Dean asked.

"No, I don't, I think I'll stay here for now," Sam replied, shaking his head.

"Alright. Want anything?"

"Yeah…I guess…." Sam mused. "A little something."

"OK. I'll getcha something."

"Yeah, that's good," Sam mumbled as Dean stalked off into the gas station, the driver's side door thunking shut heavily behind him.

Sam pulled the lever to set the seat up a little, grimacing as he did so, from the swaths of pain that wracked his body.

Blinking again to allow his eyes to adjust more, he stared at his hands.

There were deep bruises, burns, really, about the wrists, like some sort of handcuffs had dug in.

And then up and down the left arm, he realized, were needle tracks. Going in at the radial artery, he thought, groaning as he pressed his fingertips to the large bruises that outlined the needle punctures.

But…Djinn, he thought absently. Their IVs were far more numerous, went in and stayed in with tape to keep the ends secure so the blood could be tapped….

He frowned, examining the marks again, reasoning from the placement and angle of the needle marks, it looked almost like he'd done it himself.

He stiffly extended his right arm, searching it up and down for any signs of IV like the Djinn would have put in. There were the rings of bruising, burn-like around the wrist, but nothing above or below that. As eaten up as his left arm was, there were none on the right. Only on the inside of left arm. Which…. Well, either I'm overanalyzing, he thought, or this just doesn't make sense. Or…or probably both, he assuaged himself.

Dean says it's OK. Dean…. He startled in his seat as mind flashed to an image of him, first blade in hand, eyes a cold black, flecks of the brilliant red of blood staining his face. He shivered a little as he squeezed his eyes shut and open again a few times, trying to chase the image away. No, he thought. Dean was not a demon. Whatever this was, he reassured himself, had to be something to do with the Djinn.

The driver's side door opening startled him from his thoughts. Dean was back with their food. He pushed a drink bottle towards Sam, who took it with shaking hands. Sam opened it, drinking quickly. He hadn't realized how thirsty he was until he had it open in his hands.

Pausing as Dean handed him a sandwich, Sam took the moment to speak up.

"Dean? What's been going on? How'd we get here?"

His reply was unintelligible, muttered dismissively past bites of the burger he was busy inhaling.

"I know it's probably nothing, but it keeps bothering me. I keep thinking, all the needle marks, there's no way this is from a Djinn…." Sam murmured as he slowly unwrapped his food. At the moment, the worry superseded any hunger he felt.

"I got you in the car after I found you passed out from some Djinn, alright?" Dean said.

"Yeah, but what I remember does not add up to that. How'd we get here, what were we doing? Because I don't remember any Djinn—" Sam pressed, giving in to the fact that Dean probably wasn't going to reveal any more information than he could get away with. This in mind, he started to eat.

"What, what me? What have I done? I've saved you, damnit." Dean snarked, laughing darkly as he shook his head.

"Yeah, I get it, but what's with this? I need a straight answer, Dean." He persisted.

"You were dying, Sammy. And I saved you, and that's all you need to know."

"Yeah, but how? At what cost, huh? A deal with another demon—"

"No, no such thing. No deals, no catches, I just got to you in time is all." Dean swatted the air with an upturned hand as if to wave away the questions.

"Oh…"

A few minutes later as he finished eating, Sam fiddled with his pocket surreptitiously, glancing at Dean, who was obliviously digging into his fries. Sighing, Sam reached for the small bottle of iron filings he kept in his pocket.

He hated himself for even thinking of using it to test Dean, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was just not right.

Sighing, he opened it, letting the iron filings slide down around the paper from his sandwich.

"Thanks," he mumbled to Dean, smiling, trying to hide the tension that was growing inside him as he passed the crumpled paper back to his brother.

Sam braced for something, what he wasn't entirely sure.

"Eh, no problem, dude," he returned, shrugging as he got out of the car to throw away the trash.

Sam breathed again as his brother left the car, the pit in his stomach easing a little. Whatever…whatever this was, he decided, Dean was still himself.