Thanks so much for all the favorites and the reviews! I'm so glad you like the story. After this part, though, I'm going into hiding. But I'm taking my TV so I can keep up with the show of course. Adios.

Chapter Two

Dean was capsized in a tsunami of misery, and he was choking on it, drowning in it. It filled his lungs and flooded his mind. It fed the monster inside of him, unlocking doors that were never meant to be found, teasing out buried, unspoken pain until he knew nothing but liberating anger. It burned through him, livid and fetid, raw and as real as the knife under his pillow, the steel of the Impala.

Sam was there. Dean knew that—but all he could see was the thing he was, his demon-tainted soul, and all the people he had died and would die because of him.

Sam's movements strobed and jumped like he was losing chunks of time. His brain was cobwebbed and dumb. Big hands lifted him harshly, ramping up the once quiet pain in his chest. Like a wounded animal, Dean struck out with a closed fist—instinct to make the pain stop. Sam skittered into the nightstand, knocking everything over. The thunderous clatter felt uncorked a reservoir of pain, lava sluicing down his spine.

So, Dean erupted, "When you were possessed, you tried to rape Jo," he seethed, unburdening himself of the secret he'd been carrying for three years.

He didn't feel any guilt when Sam's distorted face folded with horror. "Nice start before you got them blown up on a useless mission to kill the evil you set free."

His arms were shaking and there was static in his head again. He folded into his pillow that smelled of sour sweat and gratefully faded away.

-o-

Sanity was a slippery thing. Sam's was waning like the pastel rays of a sunset. Sixty-three hours gone, and Dean was plummeting further into the toxin's hold. He was twisted with pain, dangerously feverish, and uninhibitedly mean. But he wasn't halluncinating or possessed by evil. Dean was still himself down to the mannerism: tugging at his hair when the pain crescendoed, fidgeting with restlessness from being bed-ridden, preferring red Gatorade to any other flavor.

The poison had just left him utterly disarmed. It was Dean with no barriers, no big brother filter and no shame.

Sam found himself selfishly wishing that Dean was highjacked by some remarkable evil, because everything he said, every verbal bullet he fire wouldn't be from the gun of Dean's mind, but some random evil that existed to spread misery.

The icing on the misery sundae of the week, was that Sam knew Dean physically couldn't take much more. He wasn't sure he could either as he was hiding in the bathroom, brushing his fingers against the coarse stubble that had sprouted in the past two days. His head was buzzing, echoing with Dean's ragged voice spouting horrible truths. He was slow-minded from fatigue, guilt and the snowballing realization that Sam was an abomination his big brother secretly had no faith in.

He hadn't slept or eaten in almost two and a half days. No, he hadn't been poisoned, but after the being blindsided by vengeful hunters—again—and swallowing Dean's cruelty, he was unable to keep anything down. He trembled at his sat on the toilet seat, trying to rally, but feeling as strong as a cotton ball.

The molecules around him shifted kinetically, shabby shower curtain wafting from a current of air. Sam didn't have to look up to see that Castiel loomed beside him.

"I'm afraid the hunt from the cure or counter-agent is still fruitless."

"Figured." Sam muttered. His voice sounded dead. He stared at his hands. He'd forgotten that Dean had broken one of his fingers when he'd given up punching and started smashing. It was hot and swollen now, skin stretched tight. It barely hurt, so he poked at it until it did.

"How is Dean?"

Sam pressed his shaking hands against his knees, forcing himself to stand. He turned on the cold water in the sink and shoved his hand under it. "He's hangin' in. You should probably keep lookin'. The poison might not kill him, but the fever will. Medication doesn't work, Cas. He needs relief."

"He is not the only one." Castiel fluttered in front of him, head cocked to the side. His marbled blue eyes were searching, probing. "Perhaps, I should stay with Dean while you sleep. You must need more than the standard four hours. You don't look well, Sam."

Sam shook his head, ignoring how his vision swirled even when he stopped. He dipped to the sink to splash his face, repeatedly. It worked to clear the fog a bit. "Dean wouldn't want anyone to see him like this. I got this."

Cas was apparently used to Winchester-grade orneriness, and didn't push. "Call if you need to be relieved." With no more than a snap of a trenchcoat, he was gone, and Sam felt irrationally abandoned.

Sam crossed the length of the bathroom in three short steps, his heartbeat quickening with every step he took. He was near panic by the time he reached the threshold, but he crossed it anyway, because Dean was his brother. He'd died for him. He owed him this and infinitely more.

Dean was shivering again, curled into himself, teeth clicking from the undulating chills of the fever. He was pale, eyes shadowed from fatigue, cheeks red from fever. Sam disinfected the thermometer with alcohol, and sat on the bed. He slipped it under Dean's tongue, hurrying while he was still docile.

He grunted when Dean kicked him in the hip. Hard. "Cut it out," Sam snapped. The thermometer beeped. "Hundred and one point four…it's doing down, Dean. That's good."

Seemingly out of verbal insults, Dean kicked him again, and Sam gritted his teeth as his ribs bent from the force.

Idly, he wondered if he should restrain him. He'd thought about it around the forty-third hour when Dean had started going for Sam's fingers. Then, he'd remembered the debilitating helplessness of being seized by delirium, and unable to move or react to pain and delusions when he was handcuffed to the cot in the panic room. He couldn't bring himself to do that to Dean, even if it was safer for him. Sam stood up, wincing at the ebbing pain in his side.

"Bobby lost his legs because of you."

Sam didn't have time to react to that crushing dig, because Dean's foot flew out again, catching Sam right in the groin. The world washed into a soundless red and a breath-stealing, white-hot agony in a place where there should never be pain. Sam dry-heaved into the stained carpet as the agony radiated outward. It dulled only to sharpen again.

By the time Sam could scrape himself off the floor, Dean was asleep breaths even, face relaxed for the first time in almost three days. And he felt a meager spark of desperate hope that this was finally over.

Sam hoisted himself up on the other bed, and thought about pouring at the whole ice bucket down his pants. He never remembered closing his eyes.

-o-

A constricting pressure cinched around his neck that had his body jack-kniving for air catapulted Sam from the sweetness of much-needed sleep. He was suffocating. His vision was nothing but garbled blacks peppered with oily prismed spots and for several airless seconds, he couldn't tell if he was if this was real. But it hurt too much to be a dream, even a Lucifer-induced one. His legs kicked out. One hand clawed at hands strangling him, nails tearing as they hooked over a cool metal ring. The other went to the nightstand, groping for gun he kept there. The gun that was now in the weapons bag in the bathtub.

Sam bucked and fought for air, unable to do anything but that. It was the most primal fight of his life and the most futile. Sound intensified and all he could hear were his own machine-gunning heart beat, the slapping chuff of flesh hitting flesh and the creaking of old bedsprings.

His feet became numb, leaden blocks that no longer responded. His hands weakly thumped painfully against what he knew were Dean's arms. His lungs were empty and blistingerly begging for air. Sam would be unconscious soon.

Dean hovered over him, nearly nose to nose. His face was slashed with halflight, and he looked like the fierce hunter Sam knew he was. "Payback's a son of a bitch, Sammy."

"How does it feel to be the one who ended the world? How does it feel to have the blood of thousands on your hands?"

Tears dripped from his eyes as he looked at Dean's face, and Sam morbidly hoped that this was it, that maybe he could be done. He was overwhelmingly sorry for it all. Unable to draw breath to speak, he mouthed the words. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He'd set the world up to burn, and betrayed the only family he hadn't gotten (permanently) killed, and it didn't matter if good intentions were at the heart of it.

Inexplicably, Dean released his hold. Sam's entire body convulsed with the effort to refill his lungs with oxygen. He writhed, coughing so hard he saw stars, and was only able to concentrate on breath after merciful breath.

"I went to hell for an honest-to-God monster! I disemboweled and julienned and minced souls far cleaner than yours. I learned a lot in the pit. I should filet you like a fish."

There was a flash of silver before there was a knife in his chest, piercing muscle, scraping bone. Stupefied from being strangled, Sam didn't even feel the pain, just a surge of adrenaline as he caught Dean's wrist, pushing to keep the knife from sinking down to the hilt. Dean relented but attacked again, arcing down and catching him again.

Sam was all training and efficiency now. He twisted Dean's wrist at an impossible angle, thankfully not feeling a bone-crunching pop, but a eliciting a bark of pain. Dean's hunting knife thudded uselessly to the mattress. Sam snatched it with his other arm, hurling it blindly, embedding it into the wall across the room.

His older brother was wavering now, fight waning as quickly as it had come, but Sam didn't care. He was already staggering up and away, scrambling into the safe haven of the bathroom. The pain decided to hit now, and did with the gentility of a bolt of lightning. Sam pitched forward, collapsing to the scummy tiled floor, hands skidding on his own blood. His left side was immobilized by the vicious pain of being knifed. He kicked the door shut with his remarkably long legs. Somehow, Sam didn't know, he locked it too. He scooted backwards, snatching anything that would stop the bleeding.

He found himself wedged between the toilet and the tub in the darkness, shower curtain pressed against his the punctures in his chest, crying and retching and hyperventilating.

His head was lolling and weaving, and his blood-slicked hands fell in his lap. It was all the warning he got before he passed out.

-o-

A warm glimmer radiated through him, warm like comfort, cool like water. It intensified, slowly brightening to an ethereal heat that thrust Sam into consciousness. He gasped awake and assaulted by a very angry, battered body. His throat felt bloated and blistered from the inside out, his chest crushed in and dented, like the fender of a totaled car. His stomach turned at the strong tang of the blood that soaked his left side, the top of his jeans, and the floor.

He had nothing left, just enough energy to blink and maybe whimper as Castiel's face, etched in concern, hovered in front of him. "You scared me, Sam. I had to wake you up. I apologize."

Sam didn't care, he blinked numbly, head drooping. Unconsciousness was pulling him under and he craved it. He crumpled against the side of the tub again, eyes rolling back.

Castiel's voice was softer than Sam had ever heard it, but there was nothing tender the jostling his shoulder. He would have screamed if his windpipe worked properly.

"Samuel, you need to focus. I don't know how to fix you." He held up his hands that were stained with crimson.

Thinking required energy he just didn't have, but Sam had been trained as a warrior since birth, and he instinctively knew what needed to be done. Unfortunately, he had to vocalize it with a swollen, inflamed throat, and he couldn't. He closed his eyes, licking his cold lips, summoning the strength to try.

"You don't have to speak. Think it and I will hear you."

Sam squinted at the blurry angel in front of him. Lately he'd been forgetting that Castiel wasn't human. He was angry and distraught and sarcastic, more like a rebellious son than an angel of the Lord. Disbelieving, Sam focused on one stream of thought—Open my shirt, wipe away the blood so I can see—and Castiel obeyed, tearing open his shirt so Sam could look. Castiel washed away tacky blood, revealing a constellation of swollen, angry punctures.

The shock of seeing the wounds was left him even more frayed. If asked, Sam, a trained hunter, would have sworn that Dean had only stabbed him twice, the last of which had been deflected and a shallow wound at best. Dean, who was as efficiently lethal as he was fast, had stabbed him four times. Right above his heart. The knife wounds were deep and nasty—one scraping over the breastbone—were thankfully isolated to the muscle, but they still bled merrily.

Press down…pressure will stop the bleeding. Don't break my ribs, Cas. Castiel responded, placing the heel of his hand against the still weeping wounds in his chest. Sam gurgled at the lurid flourish of pain. His abused throat closed up, slamming like a deadbolt. Sam blacked out again. When he came back, Castiel acted as his hands, stitching the wounds almost exactly as he would have done. It was like a supernatural ventriloquist act. A really disturbing one.

Sam only registered how badly he was shaking when Castiel tried to give him some Gatorade from one of the discarded bottles in the bathroom. His jaw kept locking and biting the rim of the mug or it would spill, curling down his chin. He shook his head, giving up. He focused on Castiel again, his last orders were precise.

Clean up the blood. Take care of Dean. Don't tell him about this.