Author's Notes:

I disclaim the universe of "Supernatural," and everything that is not original to this work.

I want to thank all those of you who reviewed the prologue; your kind words are truly inspirational. I'd also like to thank my beta, Wolfschild, for pointing out how many times I used the word "expression" in the first draft I sent (it was freaking unbelievable).

I hope you all enjoy Chapter 1,

Kohadril

Disorder

Chapter 1: Pre-Symptomatic

Eight miles outside of Jeremiah, and Sam was trying hard to be angry at Dean. It wasn't going well.

Certainly, he was embarrassed about how one-sided their little tussle had been. But that just didn't outweigh the fact that Sam hadn't seen his brother's spirits this high since before their father had died. He was willing to take a playful beating if it meant that Dean could smile and mean it.

Of course, Dean couldn't be allowed to know that Sam wasn't mad. Half the fun of beating on one's brother was how pissed off it made him, and Sam didn't want to rob Dean of that. He hadn't spoken a word to Dean—not one word—since they'd gotten into the car. And that shit-eating grin had rarely left his brother's face.

"So, Sammy, are you ever going to talk to me again? Or did I hurt your little girly feelings?" Dean needled, pulling Sam out of his space-gaze. Sam turned to him deliberately, face flush with the kind of hatred only brotherly love can breed.

"Just keep talking, asshat; yours is coming," Sam said quietly, the threat under his words as convincing as he could make it. In reality, it was all he could do not to laugh out loud.

"Oh no! Little Sammy's gonna get me!"

"Shut up," Sam mumbled.

"No really, I'm terrified."

"SHUT UP."

"In fact, I think I just pissed myself," Dean's grin was so cocky Sam had to look away to keep from punching him then and there. That's when he saw the police cars.

"Stop the car!" Sam shouted.

"What, you wanna do this now?"

"Roadblock! Stop the car!" Sam pressed himself back against the seat.

Dean looked up, wide-eyed, and hit the brakes.

The opportunity for revenge had come sooner than Sam had expected, but quick thinking had allowed him to take full advantage of it.

"I cannot believe you fucking did that," Dean whined as he dropped down into the driver's seat, pulling the door closed emphatically.

"You're the one who called me a bitch in front of the police officer."

"Yeah, well, you're the one who decided that the correct answer to the question 'does he always talk to you like that?' was 'only when he's drunk.'"

"In my defense, it was hilarious," Sam replied in a comfortable drawl, grinning broadly. "You should just be glad he had a breathalyzer. You can't recite the alphabet backwards for shit."

Dean sighed deeply, looked out the window, then back at Sam with a grudging smile.

"Yeah, okay. That was pretty good." He paused. "Even?"

"Even. So what the hell is the roadblock about?"

"Quarantine."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously." Dean looked over at Sam with sincerity. "Good catch, Sammy."

Shockingly, the 'I told you so' Dean had expected did not materialize. Sam took a breath, held it for a beat, and then blew it out.

"We have got to get in there."

Dean looked at Sam appraisingly. Something was up with him. Sam looked back with a puzzled 'what?' on his face. Dean turned back to the windshield, deciding to drop it for the moment.

"Yeah. It looks like we're taking the long way around."

It had just kind of hit him, as they'd sat there at the edge of town. An annoyingly vague feeling of unease. It kept him occupied, and silent, even as Dean navigated the circuitous rural roads. He tried to ignore it, but it was frustratingly prevalent.

"Sammy. You alright?" Dean asked genuinely, his eyes flashing the tiniest shimmer of worry; the most his normal façade would ever allow. Sam shook himself out of his thoughts.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he defended instinctually.

"'Cause you kinda had the thousand-yard stare thing going on there," Dean pushed.

It took Sam a moment to decide if it was worth it. He looked up at Dean just in time to see another flicker of concern.

"I feel a little weird."

"You are a little weird," Dean replied good-naturedly. Sam almost got mad, but again he found himself enjoying Dean's humor.

"That explains it then," Sam said, completely deadpan.

Dean laughed and Sam smiled to himself. The feeling hung in the air for a minute. Then Dean's eyes shifted back to near-concern, and his tone followed suit.

"What do you mean, 'weird'?"

"Just anxious, I guess. I can't figure it out."

"This a psychic thing?"

Sam's stomach lurched at the idea. Dean couldn't know, Sam decided, should never be allowed to know, how much that question scared him.

"I don't think so. I don't have a headache or anything," Sam said, trying to mask his uncertainty.

"Okay. Then what does it mean? Bad bacon cheeseburger?"

"Yeah, must be," Sam said tiredly as he turned back to the window.

Jeremiah was the kind of town you could love the idea of. It had that rural, small town aesthetic that people find inexplicably compelling: brick buildings and bright red fire hydrants, a four-by-four grid posing as a downtown. It seemed like there was a church on every corner. A bulwark against evil if ever there was one.

Sam and Dean knew better. Evil things didn't favor the godless cities over the pious villages, and they sure as hell didn't fear the Cross.

They stopped at the first motel they found, a joint that was seedy enough to be suitably cheap. They tossed some stuff in the room and set off to investigate.

Sam's anxiety hadn't gotten any better since they'd gotten into town. In fact, it had gotten progressively worse. He had decided not to tell Dean. Okay, that wasn't precisely true. In point of fact, he was too chicken-shit to tell Dean. His growing suspicion that this was indeed some kind of 'psychic thing' was seriously freaking him out, and he didn't want to risk that Dean would come to the same conclusion. As long as he didn't say it out loud—as long as Dean didn't say it out loud—he could pretend it wasn't true.

Except he had to tell Dean. This could be some kind of warning. Maybe they were in danger. He started to open his mouth as Dean braked at a stop sign.

Wait. What the fuck was he going to say? If this was a psychic thing, it was a pretty goddamn useless one. His feelings of weirdness weren't exactly actionable. They didn't change the situation or their level of knowledge. Yeah, they told Sam that something was fucking wrong with this place. But one could easily come to the same conclusion merely by noting that a guy had ripped out his own kidney the day before, and the town was now under a strict (if admittedly porous) quarantine.

He barely noticed the car slide to a stop. He felt Dean's fist smack his arm, not hard, just enough to get his attention.

"Hey Captain Oblivious," Dean snarked.

"What?" Sam responded peevishly, before noting their new surroundings.

"We're here. Kidney-Dude's place." Dean turned to pull of his seatbelt.

The moment Sam looked up and saw the house the question was settled. The anxiety spiked to the level of phobic dread. His stomach knotted and his heart rate jumped. He couldn't control it, couldn't push it down. He shuddered deeply and his body just kept trembling. He could hardly keep his breath.

"Dean," he breathed through gritted teeth.

Dean turned back to Sam, froze for a beat, then leapt into action.

"Sam!" he exclaimed, grabbing his brother's shoulder. He tried to pull them face to face, but Sam yanked his body away. Shit. He should have seen that coming. Sam bent over, burying his face between his arms. Dean withdrew a little, then put a gentler hand on Sam's back. He could feel just how hard the kid was shaking, how fast his heart was beating, how shallow his breathing was. Dean's stomach sank.

"What is it Sam? Vision?"

"No," Sam choked. "I have no fucking idea what it is."

Sam sucked in another whimpering breath. He was close to hyperventilation.

"Breathe, Sammy," Dean said, with some sternness, pushing harder against Sam's back and leaning in over him. "Come on man. In and out."

Sam choked on a few more breaths before he started to find a rhythm. The tremors began to fade as his breathing improved. In a few moments he'd calmed down considerably. Dean withdrew his hand and pulled away. Sam sat up and glanced his way, before he'd had time to compose himself, and Dean saw real terror in his eyes. In a second, Sam realized how naked he was and he looked away shamefully. He took a few more breaths before turning back to his brother with a desperate attempt at a brave smile.

"I think this might be a psychic thing," he admitted tentatively.

"You think?" Dean chortled sarcastically. Sam looked down again, and Dean immediately wished he hadn't laughed. He waited for a moment, giving Sam a little more time to collect himself.

"You wanna scrub this? We can just leave," Dean offered. Sam looked up at him hopefully.

"You won't call me a wuss?"

Dean shook his head slowly, not even a hint of judgment here, bro. Sam looked ready to agree. Then something happened; something that Dean wasn't expecting. Sam looked over at the house and took a deep, long breath.

"No," Sam said shakily. "No. We can't leave. We're going into that house."

He turned back to Dean, eyes still uncertain but now also determined. Dean was impressed, and he allowed his face to show it. A sheepish half-smile from Sam let him know the message was received.

They broke eye contact to start collecting their equipment.

After the viciousness of the panic attack, Sam was surprised to find that the anxiety was virtually gone as they mounted the steps to the home of the late Jacob Carson.

He was relieved, not just because the feeling was gone, but because frankly, he was tired of this. Really freaking tired of it. There was no question: these 'powers' were more trouble than they were worth. They proved useful only very rarely, and even then they were painful and traumatic. And when they made him lose control of himself, like they just had, they were also pretty humiliating. He had fought, long and hard, to get Dean to accept him as an adult who could take care of himself. Shit like this undermined him, made him feel helpless, and made Dean see him that way.

Dean cut the police tape and started to pick the lock. He would, of course, deny that this stuff made him treat Sam any different. The fact that his older brother couldn't go fifteen seconds without looking at him suggested otherwise.

One little psychic episode and he goes from being a partner to being a burden.

Again, that wasn't the word Dean would have used. Sam understood that Dean didn't see taking care of him as a burden. He saw it as a responsibility of kinship. Whatever one called it, the more Dean had to worry about Sam, the less he could focus on the job. Sometimes—okay, often—Sam wondered if the two of them together were any more effective than Dean had been alone. Sure, Sam had saved Dean's life on more than one occasion. But how many of those times had Dean's life been in danger in the first place because of Sam?

That wasn't all Sam had to worry about. Dean wasn't handling their father's death well. He had developed a tendency to throw himself into the hunt harder than was healthy. Sam had been helping him through it, and on more than one occasion had actually made him acknowledge what he was doing. It was still a work in progress, though, and Dean didn't need more excuses to sideline Sam and go it alone.

This wasn't something he should be thinking about right now. Dean was almost in, and he needed to give the job his full attention. Sam pulled the video camera out of the pocket of his heavy brown jacket. He flipped the LCD open and checked the infrared.

"Got it," Dean called. He turned the knob and the door swung open. Then, hero that he was, Dean went in first, scanned the room, and, absurdly, beckoned Sam with an 'all clear' gesture. Sam sighed. No. Dean wasn't going overboard at all.

It was a generic development home, which was something of a rarity in such a rural community. Sam knew that the victim had been one of the town's few professionals; a lawyer at a local firm specializing in water rights and land-use issues. He also knew he'd recently been fired. There were pictures on the walls of family members not mentioned in any of the police reports, and Sam vaguely remembered reading that his family had moved out some time ago, due to a sudden change in Mr. Carson's behavior.

"No EMF," Dean noted, sweeping his home-rigged sensor back and forth.

"No heat signatures," Sam replied as he scanned the lens across the length of the parlor. He gestured with the camera to the hall behind Dean. "It went down in the kitchen."

Sam could feel Dean's eyes linger on him for a moment, and Sam knew he was just waiting for him to crack. To freak out again. He could feel it. It was aggravating, and it was condescending, and it was…completely fucking reasonable, considering what had just happened. Damn it.

He didn't know why he wanted to be mad at Dean, but it seemed more productive than being mad at…what? His powers? Himself? Fuck it. He was just annoyed, generally speaking.

Dean led them into the kitchen, taking a moment to sweep the EMF detector over the crusted remnants of the blood pool. He shook his head and moved out of the way to let Sam scan it for thermals.

As Sam brought the camera up, he started to feel pressure building behind his eyes.

Oh fuck. Not now. Anytime but now...

It was on him in an instant, a sharp, blinding, all-too-familiar pain that brought him to his knees.

"SAM!" Dean shouted, for the second time in the last fifteen minutes.

"Sam? Are you alright? Tell me what's happening," Dean demanded. He dropped down and grabbed Sam by the arms. Second time in fifteen minutes—this town was really fucking with his brother. "You need to tell…"

"Shut up Dean," Sam responded curtly, through hard breaths. "I'm trying to concentrate."

Dean pulled back a little, surprised at Sam's seeming control of the situation. He did as he was told, but he didn't lighten his grip. Holding on to Sam during a vision made him feel slightly less useless. Sam looked down, and Dean almost lost sight of his face behind his brother's shaggy bangs.

"He's hiding…running from something. They've been chasing him for a long time," Sam said, the sentence punctuated with a groan. "They're here. I mean, they were here. It's weird. Aah. I'm seeing what happened last night."

"That's good Sammy. Keep talking," Dean said, staring up at the ceiling because he had no fucking idea what to say at times like this. Sam gasped in pain.

"And…uh. I think I see them. One of them. It's tall, light-skinned," Sam paused. "Now there are lots of them."

Dean could feel Sam shudder.

"Dean they don't have any faces."

Sam seemed to still in his arms. His grimace seemed to lighten. That was all, Dean guessed.

Wrong.

After a moment's calm Sam shivered violently.

"Oh shit, Dean," he breathed.

Sam jolted out of Dean's grip, falling to the floor and clutching his abdomen. He screamed. Not a half-assed scream. Not a loud yell. A real, blood-curdling scream. The kind of scream normally reserved for the loss of a limb. Or some internal organs.

"Sam? Sam?" Dean called, more panicked by the second. Oh fuck fuck fuck what do I do? Sam curled up into the fetal position and continued to cry as hard as his lungs would allow.

"Dean! Fuck! Dean you've got to make it stop!" Sam begged. Egoless. Prideless. Helpless.

Dean couldn't refuse that, but he was short on ideas. Then he thought of something. God he didn't want to do it, but it was better than letting Sam lie there in agony. He came up behind his brother and pulled Sam's back up against his chest. Sam bucked and jerked; not against Dean, but against the pain he couldn't find relief from. Dean restrained him as best he could before putting his right arm across his brother's neck.

"Okay, kid. I'm going to choke you out. When you wake up, you'll be in the car."

Sam seemed to doubt this course of action for a moment, but then another wave of pain hit. He squealed and kicked and nearly pulled himself out of Dean's grip, but when he finally regained enough control to do so, he nodded emphatically, so Dean could not mistake his agreement.

Without hesitation Dean began to squeeze, restricting the flow of blood through Sam's carotid artery. Sam clenched his jaw against the pain and stilled as best he could. He was trying to make things easy, Dean thought, but Sam's resistance wasn't what was making this hard. Dean felt his movements slow and his muscles relax. It was against his every instinct to hold on, but he did. He held on until Sam's eyes slid closed. Held on until that ugly grimace faded. Held on, for a few more seconds that seemed like forever, until his brother's body went limp.

Then he carefully released him, cradling his head. He checked Sam's pulse; there was always a risk, however small, with something like this. It was solid and strong.

He looked at the kid's face, tear-marked but now peaceful, and had the briefest moment of weakness.

"God, Sammy," he whispered sorrowfully.

Then he lifted his brother up over his shoulder and carried him out the door.

End Chapter 1