CHAPTER 12

"He's dead," Sam gasped, pushing himself off the wall in relief. "Dean," he breathed, knowing instinctively that his brother had come through for him. Well, for them. He turned towards Tasha and saw she was still coming to the realization the threat was gone.

He pushed himself stiffly to his feet and staggered over to the bed. "Are you okay?" he asked her, the words tumbling over each other as they spilled from his mouth. When she gave him a semi-convincing nod, he sank a knee into the mattress and leaned over to try and free the rope knots Sheldon had created on her wrists.

The knots were impossibly well-tied and he was still struggling with the first one when he felt her trembling slightly against his knee. She started tugging at the restraints and he heard her whisper urgently. "Get them off! Get them off!"

He pried and tugged at the knots, the desperate edge to her voice flustering him. The immediate threat over, she was clearly starting to react to the emotional facets of what had just happened. He huffed in annoyance when he suddenly remembered this was a dream and he could simply will the ropes off her wrists. He pictured them untied and breathed a sigh of relief as he watched them fall to the mattress. He was hoisting himself upright to his knees when she sat up and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face into his chest.

He returned the embrace, drawing her in closer as he slid his long arms and broad shoulders around her slim frame. She clung to him tightly, breathing shaky, raspy breaths and for a moment he thought she was going to cry but to her credit, she never did.

He held her gently for what seemed like a long time, hoping his presence could make her feel safe after the close call they'd just had. "It's okay," he murmured to the top of her head, his voice full of a tenderness he rarely got the chance to express in his hardened hunter's life. "It's alright now."

He had never seen her so vulnerable and in need of comfort and was surprised at how deeply it was affecting him. The intimacy and the closeness of the long embrace was making his heartbeat quicken and he came to the shameful realization his feelings for her ran deeper than friendship. His thoughts drifted to Dean out of guilt and he forced himself to pull away from her.

"You okay?" he asked as he gently extracted himself from her grip, cupping her face in his large hands and peering into her brown eyes, searching for the truthful answer no matter what her response was going to be. She sat back on her haunches and nodded convincingly enough that Sam let his hands drop.

"Yeah, sorry," she said quietly, looking around the room. "But I hate this place. We should get out of here before foster-prick comes home."

Her words reminded Sam she wasn't entirely herself and was a dream version of Tasha. Thoughts and events weren't automatically linear, logical, or even coherent in her perception and strange goings on wouldn't necessarily seem strange until she thought back on them after she woke up. She had seen Sam get shot yet didn't question how he was fine now and didn't seem to find it strange that he was sitting with her in a room she had when she was just a teenager.

"He just got taken out of here on a stretcher," he assured her, knowing she was referring to her foster father. "He's not coming back."

"Oh, yeah," she sighed. "You know Sam, it's not what he did that hurts. It's that nobody believed me. Not a single person. I'm just the strange kid who steals blood from morgue and no parents want their kids to hang around. Know what I figured out today? That I'm totally alone. If Diego found me, nobody would even notice."

"Tasha," Sam admonished, his voice laden with pity. He hoped she didn't still feel this way and it was just teenage angst talking. He decided it would be better if he could make her more aware and more her current self. "Remember the case with the dreamroot?" he asked. "In Phoenix?"

She gave him a puzzled look and nodded.

"Well this is just a dream," he said, pointing around the room. "You're dreaming."

"I'm dreaming?" Like last time, she didn't look convinced right away.

"Yeah," Sam nodded. "Sheldon Weike got his hands on your DNA and you went to sleep. This is your dream. I took the dreamroot so I could come in and make sure you were okay."

She looked thoughtful. "That was Sheldon that just…" She looked down and noticed her top was ripped open and her hand jumped to pull it closed. "Shit," she gasped.

"It's okay, he's dead," Sam assured her quickly, amused that she could be embarrassed at giving him a glimpse of bra when he had seen and touched so much more than that last night.

"Okay, wake me up," she ordered, suddenly seeming very much like the Tasha he knew.

"Uh, Sheldon drugged you, remember? I think you're stuck in dreamland for a little while yet."

She looked distastefully around the room. "I'm stuck here? In this hellhole?"

"No, we can change the dream. If you take control of it, you can take us wherever you want to go." Sam figured he'd hand the reins over as Dean had with Bobby.

"How do I do that?"

"Just concentrate on a happy place and picture yourself there," he answered simply.

She rolled her eyes but screwed up her face in concentration for a few seconds. Nothing happened.

"Okay, start small," Sam suggested. "Try to change something in the room."

She huffed in annoyance, patience never having been one of her stronger suits. She scrunched her eyes closed again and Sam felt something tickle his neck. He looked down to find his shirt was gone and a pink, feathered boa was wrapped around his neck.

He looked back up to see Tasha laughing at him, all traces of hurt from all that had happened wiped from her cheery face. "Hey, it worked!" she giggled.

"Very funny," he blushed, his lips betraying him as they spread into a wide grin at the sight and sound of her laughter. "Give me my shirt back."

"Spoilsport," she snickered but she closed her eyes and tried again. "Listen, you're the dreamwalking guru," she said finally when nothing happened. "Can't you just take us somewhere else?"

Sam shrugged but agreed, anxious to get himself out of the ridiculous outfit.

"Somewhere I like," she interjected. "Find somewhere good in here." She tapped her temple.

Sam was acutely aware of the fact that she was inviting him to poke around in her head and found the level of trust in him that implied heartwarming but more than a little daunting. He reached his mind out towards hers and quickly found the swirling mass of emotions. Without the urgency and the distractions of his previous attempts, he took his time and concentrated on some of the nice ones. He found one that had a strong sense of peace attached to it and decided that was what she needed right now. Projecting a little farther into that specific memory showed him a scenic spot in Oklahoma, a small grassy clearing at the top of a rocky outcrop overlooking a beautiful, secluded lake. He pulled it forward and within seconds, they were sitting in the same positions they had been on the bed only now on a patch of grass. There was a light breeze and birds were chirping in the surrounding trees. Sam had made sure his shirt was back on and the boa was gone.

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Dean made it back to the Impala without incident, his face set in stony austerity. He drove the busy Phoenix streets stiff-shouldered and tense, a sense of dread about what he would find in the room mounting inside him as he approached the motel. Tasha and Sam had been under a long time before he'd killed Sheldon. What if the bastard had tried to attack Tasha as he had planned? Or worse, what if he had succeeded?

As if that wasn't a horrifying enough scenario, what if Sam had tried to stop Sheldon? Dean knew without a doubt Sam would stop at nothing to save Tasha, it was what the kid did. It was the sole reason Sam kept hunting even though Yellow-Eyes was dead and Jessica had been avenged. He did it to save people. If the unthinkable happened and Sheldon managed to rape Tasha, it meant Sam was dead.

Dean shook the thought from his head like he was shaking water from his ears after a swim. Sam was tough, smart, and resourceful. Throw in his freaky psychic shit and he could certainly hold his own against some smarmy university punk.

He opened the motel door completely unaware he was holding his breath. His eyes fell on the two still forms and his heart immediately skipped a beat at the unexpected revelation that they were now on the same bed. How had that happened? How had Sam gone from his own bed to being sprawled on his back next to Tasha, his arm draped across her hips and his long limbs hanging off the side of her bed?

He strode over to the bedside and laid a hand on Sam's chest. He let out a gush of air in his relief at the feel of the muscled physique rising with breath. Tasha too was still breathing, a fact he could see more easily as her shapelier form was lifting Sam's head slightly as she inhaled.

In fact, besides Sam's awkward position, they two of them looked quite serene and peaceful. Dean sat himself on the edge of the empty bed, leaning forward on his knees and studying the oblivious pair. The silence offered him an unwanted opportunity for quiet reflection and contemplation and he was soon lost in dark thought. As was common these days, his last days, his thoughts centered around his imminent death and what was to become of the people he was leaving behind.

Sam was strong. He would keep going. The kid had always been independent, achingly so as far as Dean was concerned. It was Sam's strength and independence that had taken him away from Dean for almost four years when a teenage Sam had left him and their father to go to Stanford and shoot for normal. He would grieve but eventually, he would get over it and move on, hopefully back to that apple pie life Dean had mistakenly dragged him away from three years ago. Dean didn't want to go to Hell but, given a do-over, he would still make the deal. Sam was worth it.

His eyes drifted to Tasha and guilt once again curled its accusing tendrils around his heart. He should never have brought her along with them. He'd never dreamed that he would actually fall in love with her - he had convinced himself it had been all about the sex. It had been an easy lie because, hell, the sex was amazing. But now that he looked back on it, the truth was that being around her made all the constant fear and pain go away. She made him laugh and made him feel so not alone. She never judged his way of life, the traveling, the credit card scams, the hustling, the having no worldly possessions save his car and what fit into its trunk, his lack of a higher education, his co-dependent and almost obsessive devotion to Sam…...none of it.

When he had traded his soul for Sam's life, he'd had nothing left to live for - not without Sam. His tired, empty soul hadn't been too high of a price and making the deal had been a no-brainer. By letting Tasha into his life, all he had succeeded in doing was giving himself another reason to live. Something else to lose. Something else to miss when he was screaming in torment from the bowels of Hell for all eternity.

He let out a long, tired sigh. And someone else to hurt when he died.

At least Sam would still be there for her. It was obvious they cared for each other and Dean was sure they would stay in touch after he was gone. Sam would continue looking for leads on Diego and wouldn't ever stop hounding Bobby to dig up some intel on the looming vampire threat. Sure, the kid was all awkward and bothered around her right now because of the wild and crazy incident in the Impala last night, but he'd get over that eventually. He nodded his head in physical agreement with his own silent thoughts. Yeah, he could count on Sam to look out for her after he was gone. They were friends and he trusted Sam to look out for his friends. Hell, he trusted Sam with everything.

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"How'd I do?" Sam asked Tasha. "This a good spot?"

She gave him a slightly confused look. "What do you mean how'd you do?"

Sam groaned as he realized that once again, the knowledge that this was a dream had been wiped from her awareness. "Never mind," he dismissed, feeling no need to go through the explanation all over again. "What is this spot?"

She seemed relaxed as she looked around. "I love it up here," she said quietly. "After my Dad died, my aunt thought it would be too dangerous for me to stay with her so we created Natasha Walker and I spent four years in the Oklahoma Foster Care system. I used to sneak up here any chance I got. I grew up spending a lot of time alone and solitude isn't something you get much of in most foster homes. Most of the families were nice but they were so…..restrained. So-called normal families," she told him, "Get so wrapped up in obligations and routines. They're so confined within their preconceived limitations and social constraints that they forget to actually live, you know?"

Sam couldn't help but smile as she spoke. He had always known she was intelligent but, like Dean, she rarely expressed the depths of her thoughts and opinions, instead dumbing down her comments or making light of her feelings to prevent accidental personal exposure. The fact that she was speaking so freely to him now ignited a sense of intimacy between them and he was finding himself drawn to her like never before. He wondered briefly if this was a side of her Dean saw.

"My Dad and I used to live day to day, like you and Dean," she continued. "We went where we wanted when we wanted. We saw so many different places and wonderful things. Normal people miss out on a lot, you know?"

She turned towards him and smiled. "Of course you know," she said, leaning in and giving him a friendly shoulder nudge. "Of all people, you understand. You never look at me like I'm crazy."

He turned towards her and her face was suddenly so close to his that Sam could feel her breath on his cheek. He was acutely aware that the energy between them was quickly transforming into something else, something both compelling and frightening. He knew he should pull away but couldn't bring himself to do it. He knew she wasn't the real Tasha but rather the uninhibited, slightly altered dream conscience version of Tasha but he still needed to back off. All the Tashas belonged to his brother. His pulse was racing and he shifted to sit up straighter but before he knew what was happening, she was pressing her lips against his.

Every nerve and muscle was screaming at him to put a stop to this; that this was Dean's girl and this was cheating. His desire and his hunger, however, were disguising themselves as his logic and were frantically trying to convince him that this was just a dream therefore he wasn't really touching her and there was no actual physical contact whatsoever. No harm done.

The deceitful emotions finally won and he returned the kiss, parting his lips and allowing his tongue to slide along her lower lip. She let him in without hesitation, her own tongue caressing his as she coaxed it farther in. Her hand was suddenly sliding around to the nape of his neck, her fingers gently curling into the wisps of his uncut hair. Her head tilted to weave its way closer and she leaned in against him, her body pressing its warmth onto his.

His arms slid around her of their own accord and he felt her relax into his hold, her mouth and tongue dancing with his, sucking and swirling in one seemingly endless breath. She released the softest, most alluring moan Sam had ever heard right into his mouth and all thoughts of guilt vanished in a sudden wave of longing.

Just a few seconds into the kiss, Sam realized without a doubt what had set her apart from the hundred other girls Dean had been with; why his brother had become so quickly smitten. The way she gave herself over so completely to the kiss. The breathy, barely-perceptible moans that begged for more. The intoxicating, heavenly taste of her. Her ability to instantly make the entire world disappear, leaving just the two linked bodies and nothing else to hear, see, or touch.

This was what he was experiencing now and he reveled in it, closing his eyes and breathing her in. He drew her closer and plunged his tongue deeper into the welcoming heat of her mouth, tasting her in the most intimate of ways that she had previously denied him. The tenderness of the first moments soon gave way to neediness and lust and he found his hands roaming over her curves, gliding from her hips upwards and finally around to her breasts.

Never allowing his mouth to lose contact with her lips, he pressed forward, urging her gently backwards as he lowered her down onto the grass. His body followed and before he could make sense of what was happening, he was on top of her, a knee planted in the grass on either side of her and his fingers fisting in the long, chestnut locks at the back of her head as he kissed her even more fiercely. Responding to his increased urgency, she slid her hands up in between their nearly-touching torsos and glided them across his chest before letting them roam southward. They made their way back up his well-muscled abs underneath the cumbersome shirts and Sam couldn't help but relocate his knees to between her legs, gently pushing her thighs apart as he lowered his body down to grind his hips against hers.

He gasped and broke the kiss at the sheer intensity of his body's response to the move. Despite the almost overwhelming urge to start ripping clothes off, he froze.

"I can't," he said in breathless restraint. "Dean."

He hovered over her on his elbows and knees, panting from his former anticipation and his current struggle with self-control. "Are you gonna be okay?" he asked her urgently, his voice not much more than a whisper. He searched her eyes for reassurance. He needed to leave. If he didn't, he was sure he wouldn't be able to stop himself.

"Well I would be if you would just take those pants off," she smiled at him suggestively, her fingers ghosting over his belt buckle and her legs hooking themselves behind his thighs.

"I can't," he repeated, realizing this wasn't even really Tasha but her dream self. A flood of guilt and shame washed over him and he projected his mind out in desperate search of the edge of the dream, the awakeness he had found before. "You'll be alright," he added in a reassuring tone. "You're safe here and you'll wake up soon."

He found what he was looking for and reached for it, letting his green eyes lock on hers once more.

"I love you," he blurted, lowering his head to give her a quick kiss on the forehead before dashing for the exit.

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A/N: Okay, I'm hoping nobody holds Sam and Tasha's actions against them. Sam's feelings are all genuine and he loves Dean more than anything and it was a fleeting moment of weakness. As for Tasha, all you girls out there can't tell me that you've never dreamt of another guy when you've had a boyfriend *lol*. If that was cheating, Jensen and Jared would be the ultimate homewreckers :-) Don't forget to leave me a review and let me know what you thought! Thanks!