The patient and talented K. Hanna Korossy has helped immensely with all the chapters she's betad, but this one more than most. She looked over, and made multiple fantastic suggestions, to two separate drafts of this. This makes her awesome, and somebody who deserves your thanks (if you enjoy this chapter, that is).

Thank you to all of my reviewers; I'm glad so many people are interested in where this is going.

I hope you enjoy Chapter 8, which is unusually long. This is the angst climax of the story. If you like breakdowns, this is the one you've been waiting for.

Kohadril

Chapter 8: Psychotic Break

The ride back to the motel was long and silent, and as much as Dean knew he should be forcing Sam to talk, it was so much harder now.

They'd spoken, briefly, early in the trip. Just enough to ascertain they were on the same page with respect to Washington's threat. The guy rarely left his compound and had no idea where they were staying, so they didn't feel he was dangerous.

Dean hit the brakes at a stop sign as they came into the downtown area, and a sharp pain lanced through his still-swollen knee. It wasn't much—he didn't even grimace—but for a moment he appreciated how damaged his body was, all the injuries he'd never gotten checked out. All the dull, persistent pains he'd routinely ignored. He was a walking bruise; he ached from head to toe, but he kept it all from Sam. Why?

There were things Dean knew about his brother, things their father had told him just before he'd died, that Dean had promised not to tell Sam. When he'd made that promise, he hadn't realized how much the knowledge would weigh. Like the injuries, they were a burden he bore alone, that he couldn't ask for help with, that split him away from his brother.

He could handle that, though, and he had been. He could even handle doing the job at the same time. Dean recognized, without self-congratulation, that he was stronger than most. But even with all these things he could do, with all this strength he had, he couldn't handle this. He couldn't take care of his schizophrenic brother on top of fighting demons, militia nuts, and the mother of all nightmares. It was just too much—one crisis too many.

So he wasn't making Sam talk to him. Because whatever Sam was hiding, whatever burden he wasn't sharing, Dean couldn't take it right now. Something was wrong with Sam, and a large part of Dean didn't want to know what it was. It was shameful, horrible, gut-wrenching, but it was the truth.

And it wasn't a choice, or at least, it didn't feel like one. As much as Dean knew exactly what was going on inside his own head, it didn't seem like he had any conscious say in the matter. He kept trying to talk. He'd open his mouth to say something, and Sam would look at him almost hopefully, and Dean would…just shut down. Involuntarily. Like he'd been kicked so often and so hard that he couldn't muster the courage to put himself out there again.

If he'd been any less disciplined, in the least bit weaker, he'd have been bawling at the side of the road. As it was, he kept his mouth shut, and they sat, mired in guilty silence.

When they arrived in the parking lot, it was near bedtime and Dean was relieved. He was exhausted, Sam was exhausted, and things usually looked better in the light of day than in the dead of night. Just a few hours of rest, just one goddamn night of weakness, and Dean knew for certain that he'd have the strength to make Sam talk in the morning. Maybe Sammy'd even have the strength to tell him the truth, and there would be a few less secrets dividing them.

Sam stood in the field again, in his bedclothes, beneath an orange sky. He had come to know this place so well, he recognized every difference: it was sunrise rather than midday, there was a warm breeze rather than a cold wind, the grass was dry and prickly underfoot, and the ground was hard rather than wet and spongy.

There were no clouds to be seen, even as he approached the altar. He still had no control; he couldn't stop himself from moving toward it. All these variations in atmosphere and environment, but the progression was always the same.

He was there now, at the altar, and the earth beneath his feet was growing warmer, vibrating perceptibly and issuing a deep, low hum. The stone table was practically covered with blood, he now noticed; the ancient scripts and characters were painted over. Blood ran off the stones in rivers rather than streams, mixing with the dirt under Sam's feet, even as the hum began to crescendo.

The vibration built to tremors, which built to shaking, which built to an earthquake. The stones collapsed, and the earth split beneath Sam's feet and suddenly he was falling, fast and far, landing with bone-crushing force on a rocky floor as the ground closed up above him, leaving him in darkness.

He struggled to raise his head, and he caught a brief glimpse of a grinning, knife-toothed maw as his consciousness slipped away.

Sam awakened with a shiver, his head throbbing. His whole body was cold, a fine layer of sweat gluing his pajamas to his chest and legs. The moment of terror quickly subsided, the power of the imagery and visceral sensation fading almost immediately upon waking. He thought, for what had to be the fiftieth time in the last few days, that these dreams, these visions, would not be nearly so awful if he had a fucking clue what they meant.

Of course, that was asking too much, wasn't it? He'd heard what Washington had said: just like everything else, this was a symptom of what was going on. That his powers were "going crazy" was a product of the evil stirring beneath the earth.

Sam slid out of bed quietly; in the dark, stealth was a reflex. He grabbed a dry shirt from his bag and made his way to the bathroom, turning the lights on only once the door was closed and locked behind him. He sat down carefully on the toilet lid and pulled off his damp shirt, resting there for a moment and collecting himself.

He needed this to stop. He needed to be able to sleep through the night so he could have his wits during the day. The visions sucked. They always had. But he could handle them. Sam could handle losing the woman he had intended to marry, losing his father, helping Dean cope, and doing this job. He didn't imagine, would never imagine, that he was as strong as his brother was, but he wasn't weak, and as awful as dealing with all this stuff had been, he'd survived.

This was too much, this disease. It was just one thing too many. He was overwhelmed, constantly carrying with him a primal sense of panic. He wanted to scream, wanted to cry, but he knew his brother would hear it, and Sam wasn't stupid. He knew Dean was carrying much too much already.

He'd been so close to giving it up, to telling Dean everything, before Washington had interrupted them. He still wanted to, but he couldn't make the first move. He was paralyzed by his pride, by his fear, and by these thoughts he had, these awful thoughts that somewhere, deep inside, Dean resented him.

Their father had basically sold Dean's childhood to pay for Sam's. As good as Dean was at all the things John Winchester seemed to value, in retrospect, Sam understood that his brother had never really been given a choice. He couldn't leave the family because it was his job to keep his brother safe. It was ingrained in who Dean was, to the point that there was a gun by the sink right now, a Smith & Wesson autoloader and a full magazine, next to Dean's toothbrush where he'd left it to dry after cleaning it that morning.

And Sam had repaid that by abandoning him. By questioning his every action and plan. By holding him back and criticizing him. By being a constant burden, an extra consideration, a complication to Dean's already difficult life. How the fuck could Dean not resent him?

He breathed deep, clenched his jaw, willed the moisture out of his eyes and stood to face the mirror. He fought himself, fought his feelings, until the man looking back at him betrayed no weakness.

He reached for the dry shirt, and something caught his attention. His mirror image stayed perfectly still. When he turned back to it, he found a pair of obsidian eyes. Sam barely kept in a shout as his heart practically jumped out of his chest.

"See it," Jessica said.

"See what you're becoming," John Winchester commanded.

"See what you are," his brother whispered.

"No," Sam said aloud, backing away from his demonic reflection, which was now matching his every move.

"Yes," came John's voice from beside him. Despite himself, Sam spun to face the sound and, horribly, found the form of his father standing exactly there. But it wasn't his father, for in the place of that man's dark green eyes was the horrid swirling yellow of the demon that had killed everyone—save for Dean—that Sam had ever loved.

Sam's hand shot out and snatched the autoloader from the towel by the sink, shoving the clip into the handle and drawing back the slide to ready the first round in a single flash of motion. He put the gun right at the demon's head.

"You know I'm not here," the demon said. "And even if I were, that popgun wouldn't do a damn thing to me."

"So I'm hallucinating?" Sam searched.

"No," the demon twisted. "But you did know that I'd start coming to you, didn't you? Like I came to Anson Weems? I'm here for you now, Sammy."

Sam's stomach clenched, a sick feeling overtaking him. He fell back heavily onto the toilet lid, gun held limply at his side. "I'll never do anything for you."

"Yes, you will," the demon said, morphing into Dean before his eyes. As Sam watched, one, two, three huge bullet holes appeared in Dean's body, two in the heart, one in the center of the head. "You'll do this for me."

The surge of guilt was awful, a vicious wave of nausea and self-loathing ripping through his body. Sam restrained a silent cry, and even more narrowly kept from throwing up. He looked away, the tears coming freely now.

"No," he protested weakly when he finally got some control over himself.

The demon leaned down in front of him, his shirt and face practically covered with the blood streaming from the gaping wounds. "And after that, you'll do so much more. My army needs a leader, Sammy, and that's you. My favorite son."

"What?" Sam gasped.

"What, John didn't tell you?" The demon's snideness while in Dean's body was horrifically appropriate. "Actually, that's not so surprising, since you're not actually his son."

There was no feeling more akin to horror that Sam had ever felt than the one that kept him silent and attentive as the demon revealed the awful truth.

"That's right, Sammy. I'm your daddy."

"No," Sam whimpered again, without the barest thread of conviction.

"God, he must have really hated you, to keep the truth from you like that. And Dean? Dean probably knows, too. He probably hates you just as much as John did, but can't admit it to himself, 'cause he's a good brother." The demon looked at Sam with a malicious smirk. "Well, half-brother, anyway."

Sam couldn't bring himself to move or speak, so he listened, trembling with guilt, fear, and grief. It was true, Sam could feel it within him. Every word the demon spoke was laden with confirmation of fears Sam had long held.

"But there's nothing good about you, is there? All that's stopping you from accepting your destiny are your childish notions of loyalty and family. Dean is all that's left, and you don't owe him anything. Once you realize that," the demon needled, "you'll do exactly what I want you to."

I owe him everything, Sam thought after another agonized glance at his brother's mangled form. The world clarified and he finally understood that no good could come of his life. He was a burden to a brother who justifiably resented him. His existence had brought nothing but violence and pain to those he loved. And he was the spawn of a demon, whose influence would inevitably twist him toward horrific evil. It became absolutely apparent what he had to do.

"No," Sam said a final time as his tears stopped and determination took hold. "I won't."

The demon looked on fearfully as Sam brought the barrel of the gun up to his own temple.

Sam wasn't in his bed, and Dean could have sworn he heard him talking to someone in the bathroom. He was up at the door, and Sam had just denied…something. It was difficult to make out.

"Sam? Open the door," Dean called, a horrible feeling in his stomach. "Whatever you're seeing or hearing, it isn't real."

"Go away," Sam croaked, clearly crying.

"I can't do that, man. Not until I know what's going on," Dean replied. There was an ominous pause.

"I'm sorry, Dean. I'm so sorry," Sam said, his voice heavy with remorse and finality.

"Sam? Sam!" Dean yelled. He'd left a gun in the bathroom, with a full clip of ammunition. "Whatever you're thinking, I forgive you! Just don't—"

Fuck this.

Dean backed up two feet from the door and gave it a powerful kick, easily busting it open. Sam was sitting on the toilet in his pajama bottoms, gun pressed into his right temple, staring up at Dean with weakening grit. Dean suppressed the urge to rush over to him and pull the gun out of his hands: such a move might force his brother's hand.

"I need to do this," Sam said, maybe as much to convince himself as Dean. "I can't…hurt people anymore. I don't want to be a demon."

"You won't be, Sammy," Dean said, voice trembling with fear even as he tried to be soothing. It was difficult to concentrate on keeping an even tone when all he could think about was the gun at his brother's head. He inched closer to Sam.

"He was here! The demon!" Sam yelled, anger flashing in his eyes. He regripped the pistol, and Dean's heart nearly stopped. "He told me everything. That I was his son, not Dad's. That you know it, too. So stop pretending!"

"It's not true," Dean sputtered. "None of it. Do you hear me? It wasn't real!"

Sam looked down, anger bleeding into confusion and pain again. Dean leaned toward his brother and held his hand out in front of him.

"Give me the gun, Sam," he pleaded painfully. Sam paused, considering it.

"No," he wheezed, pushing the barrel into his head even harder. "No, I've got to do this."

"Why?" Dean tried, inching even closer.

"All I ever do is hurt you," Sam choked. "And I'm going to do it again. The thing I'm becoming…I'll hurt you. I've seen it." He fought off a sob, but only barely. "You've done everything for me. I owe you my life—I can't hurt you anymore."

Sam's index finger went to the trigger.

"Sam!" Dean shouted desperately, ignorant of the tears running down his cheeks, heedless of his faltering voice. "Sam, what you're about to do? Nothing you could ever do would hurt me worse."

Sam's eyes shot to Dean's, and Dean saw real conflict. "Bullshit. I know you resent me. I know I deserve it."

"A little," Dean admitted. This was not the time for lies. "We're brothers and that's how it goes. But I care about you, man." Dean found himself shielding his eyes from Sam, as though how deeply he cared for his brother was something to be ashamed of. And there again was guilt. What was Sam supposed to think, if this was the way he acted? He stared Sam right in the eye, and said the thing they never said. "I love you."

Sam whimpered and looked away, clearly overcome. There was a tense moment, another hint of conflict, then his finger moved away from the trigger, his grip on the gun loosening.

Dean moved in, slowly, deliberately. He crouched in front of his brother and put his left hand gently on the gun. Sam tightened momentarily, and Dean resisted the impulse to try to pull the gun away.

"No," Sam bleated. "I need to…"

"No, you don't," Dean said, putting his free hand firmly on Sam's bare shoulder. Sam stilled, then relinquished the gun. Dean laid it carefully on the ground, overwhelmed with relief and that awful, crushing feeling of narrowly avoided tragedy. He pulled Sam down against him as the younger man dissolved into uncontrollable tears.

"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam wept into his brother's shirt. "I'm sorry."

Dean choked on a sob of his own and clung fiercely to his brother. He buried his face in Sam's hair and kissed his head, praying for the strength not to let him down again.

A half-hour later, Sam's psychosis had remitted. He was sitting at the foot of his bed, fully clothed—socks, tee-shirt, hooded sweatshirt—but he still felt unbearably naked. Dean was at the foot of the other bed, staring at the ground.

"What was it?" Dean asked quietly.

"For a while, it's been voices," Sam replied softly. "Tonight I saw…my face, in the mirror, with black eyes. Then I saw the yellow-eyed demon in Dad's body."

Sam heard Dean grunt. It was an agonized sound, like a choked, hysterical laugh.

"How long?" Dean asked, louder this time, turning his head to look at Sam. Sam could see tears shining in his brother's eyes. "With the voices, how long?"

"Just since last night."

"There's more, then, right?" Dean pushed, gritting his teeth. "I know you haven't been sleeping."

"Dreams," Sam answered honestly. "Like the one I hallucinated about. The altar in the field."

Dean looked down and took a deep breath. Sam fully expected he was about to get yelled at. He was almost looking forward to it—he knew it was deserved.

"I fucked up, man," Dean said soberly. "I knew you were hurting and I didn't make you tell me why."

"What?" Sam balked, almost angrily. "This isn't your fault. I made my choice. I'm in control of…" he trailed off as the absurdity of the statement became apparent to him. That brought a familiar tightness to his throat.

"Yeah," Dean mused. "That's what I'm saying."

"I can still…" Sam fought, trying to find something he could still do for Dean, some utility he still had that the disease hadn't taken away. He failed. "God," he whispered.

"We're going to have to change some things," Dean said, all business. And in a moment of clarity, Sam knew exactly what needed to be changed.

"Take me to the hospital," he said, interrupting his brother.

"What?"

"Commit me, Dean," Sam said defeatedly.

"Wha—No!" Dean's eyes went from forced calm to pure terror in a split-second.

"That's what's left, man," Sam said, cold and rational. "All I can do now is get in the way."

"I'm not leaving you with people I don't know!" Dean got up off the bed and faced Sam. Sam stood, too, putting every inch of his considerable height to use as he looked down at his older brother.

"Then I'll do it myself," he said brokenly. He couldn't believe how much this hurt, and he couldn't imagine why Dean was putting up so much of a fight against it.

"No. Fuck that. No," Dean said, moving right up to Sam, not the least bit intimidated. "You're not going anywhere."

"I'm an adult, Dean!" Sam yelled. "I don't need your permission."

Dean just stood there, lost and afraid, and Sam turned away to find his duffel bag.

"No, I guess you don't," Dean's voice came from behind him, low and uneven. "You sure didn't care what I thought the last time you left."

Sam grimaced as though struck, and anger flashed in his heart. "Holy shit, you do not get to use that now."

"Why the hell not? The only difference between then and now is that I'm not letting you go."

"The only difference? What? How about that I'm not safe to be around? How's that for a difference?" Sam turned back to Dean. "I could hallucinate that you're a shapeshifter and put one in your head when you're not looking."

"You remember that last hunt we had, before you left? The werewolf that nearly broke you in two?" Dean interrogated. "I do. I got that thing's attention off you and it ripped me up pretty bad. I still have some of those scars, and I remember the way you looked at me after. Like you were responsible for it."

"That's not why I left!" Sam protested a little too hard.

"It was part of it," Dean hit back. "You always think you know what's best, but you don't get it. I took the hit, and I'll always take the hit, because I'd rather be hurt than see you hurt. So if you're going to leave, don't fucking pretend you're doing it for me."

Sam felt like he'd been slapped. There was so much pain in Dean's voice that it hardly sounded like his brother at all. "I'm not leaving you forever. Just until you find the thing and kill it."

"I can't do that without you," Dean said.

"Yes, you can. You just don't want to."

"No," Dean reaffirmed, looking at Sam with real, unguarded tears. "I can't. You need me to say it out loud? Fine! You're smarter than me!"

Sam was struck dumb.

"When we're dealing with werewolves or ghosts or something fucking normal, maybe I know more than you, but we're not!" Dean continued, betraying an insecurity, a flawed humanity, Sam rarely ever saw. "I don't know what to do. I don't know how to find it or how to kill it, and no book out there is going to tell me. I'm not smart enough…" Dean swallowed heavily and wiped his nose with his sleeve. "I'm not smart enough to figure this out on my own. But you're smart, Sammy. Scary smart, sometimes. Even if you're crazy half the time, you've still got more of a shot than me. And our chances are even better together."

Sam resisted it, largely because he didn't think it was true. He didn't believe he'd be useful at all, didn't think he had anything left to give. But it was clear Dean believed he did. That hurt, too, because Sam couldn't stand to let his brother down.

Worse than that fear, though, was the one of being too much of a burden for Dean to handle, of getting him killed if he stayed. Sam only had one card left to play.

"I almost killed myself tonight," he reminded Dean, prompting a grimace from his brother. "I'm not safe here."

"And you're safer in the loony bin? What happens if you have a vision? Or start babbling about what we do?"

"They'll just think I'm hallucinating."

"What about Washington? He hears you're at the hospital, he'll know I'm in town, too, and he'll use you to stop me from killing the big bad. Or how about Aphorael? If he's dumped his last body, there's a pretty good chance he'll get his new one at the crazy farm."

Sam didn't have an answer for that one. Dean jumped on the opportunity.

"I need you to get this, Sammy: you're not the best judge of what's good for you right now."

Sam sat down on his bed again, drained of his will to fight, tears welling in his eyes. His brother was right.

"What am I supposed to do, Dean?" he asked resignedly.

"Stay with me," Dean said, leaning back against the table across from Sam's bed. "We'll put all the weapons in the trunk of the Impala, and I'll keep the keys with me. Unarmed, I'm pretty sure I can take you, and the doctor said you probably wouldn't try to hurt anybody but yourself anyway."

"But when I'm alone—"

"The bathroom door doesn't close or lock anymore, so that issue's taken care of," Dean snarked, trying perhaps too hard to lighten the mood.

"You've got to sleep sometime," Sam said fatalistically. "And that's usually when it's worst."

"We'll sleep in the same bed. I'm a light sleeper. You won't be able to get up without me knowing."

"Dean—"

"It's that or I cuff you to the bed. Which sounds more comfy?"

Dean watched Sam duck his head. He understood exactly what the kid was feeling: that Herculean effort to overcome pride, when pride was all that was left.

Sam nodded silently, a gentle surrender.

Dean's relief was palpable, but it was tempered by the desolate look in Sam's eyes. He'd been left with almost nothing: no confidence, no independence, and scant dignity. Keeping Sam's morale up was critical if he was going to hold back this disease and help Dean find and kill the thing responsible for his condition.

Dean came over to sit beside him. "I won't say it's going to be okay, 'cause you're not stupid and I don't know it will be," he said, looking down. "But you're thinking you can't survive this, and you can. You're stronger than you think. Stronger than I ever give you credit for. And no matter what happens, I'm proud that you're my brother."

Dean shook the tears out of his eyes. "That was a little lame, wasn't it?" he chortled brokenly. Sam sputtered on a sob and laughed, probably more heartily than the joke deserved.

"Seriously though, you better not hog the covers. I will kick your ass, crazy or not," Dean teased. Sam laughed again, and a mischievous grin crossed his face.

"But I need more covers. I've got like twice as much surface area," he whined.

"That's like your secret, smart-person way of calling me short, isn't it?"

"Yes. Amazing. You've cracked the code."

"Fuck you, Sammy."

"Fuck you too, Dean."