Hi! I didn't want it to be this long before I posted a new part, but I kind of freaked out about where I'd taken the story. So, Bobby to rescue. There's one more part left! Please let me know what you think.

Thanks so much for all the support!

Chapter 3

Dean tumbled from a long-winded labyrinth of muddy dreams and into a hallucination that consisted of a certain rogue angel, was on his hands and knees scrubbing the floor Donna Reed-style, yellow kitchen gloves and all. He rubbed the crust from his eyes, more focused on that, than the pervasive ache of his body, the hint of sulfur on his tongue, and an inexplicable feeling of dread in his stomach.

He'd done something wrong. He could feel it.

Sensing the movement, Castiel turned to him, expression blank. Until he smiled. It was waxy and didn't seem to fit his face. His eyes were still heavy with a millennia of duty. Dean glared at him in suspicion.

"You are awake," Castiel said. "You were poisoned by hunters. Do you recall?"

Dean grunted a yes, still gaining his bearings. Something was wrong. He could feel it even if his head hurt too much to figure it out. The room smelled of Pine Sol and it was making even more lightheaded. He felt like he could sleep for a month and then demolish an entire buffet. He felt wasted and weak. He felt…no knife under his pillow. Dumbly, he turned to the other bed, wondering how he hadn't noticed it earlier. It was empty, but more than that, the bed had been stripped. No bedspread. No sheets.

"Sam. Where's Sam?" Dean felt frantic because he didn't know. He didn't remember.

Castiel's face remained unchanged, but he fidgeted, twisting the finger of his rubber gloves with fascination. If angels were anything, they weren't uncertain or shy. They were built to accept and deliver all-or-nothing.

"Sam isn't here, Dean. He left me to watch over you."

There was only one reason why Sam would take off when Dean was out of his head with fever. "Did he go after the hunters who roofied me?" Dean asked, praying Sam wasn't that stupid.

Castiel's face never changed, dopey, incongruous smile included, and he nodded slowly. "Yes, that's where he went. I…tried to stop him."

"Dude, you're an angel. I know Sam is a friggin' giant, but I think you could take him down with two fingers."

A bottle of red Gatorade nearly hit him in the nose. "Sam said you were going to be in need of fluids and that you need to rest."

Dean pushed himself upright slowly, which ignited a bruising pain in his right wrist. He pulled up his sleeves, frowning at the swollen limb, flecked with dried blood and peppered with scratches. He sipped at the Gatorade until the liquid sloshed in his empty stomach. The drink cleared his head and gave him a meager supply of strength. It was all he needed. Determined, he forced himself to his feet. His legs were rubbery and stubborn, refusing to hold his weight, but he locked his knees and willed himself to stay upright. Dean wobbled into the bathroom to shower. The cramped room wreaked of bleach that viciously turned his stomach. And the feeling of utterly wrong skyrocketed when Dean saw shower curtain was missing and the weapons bag was stuffed in the sink.

The very bag Sam would have taken with him if he were tracking down hunters.

"Cas!" The bellow made the room spin and Dean had to sit. He plopped on the commode, leaning forward to rifle through the duffel. He found Sam's favorite .45 mm and preferred sawed-off and all of the weapons they readily carried, except Dean's knife. He twisted the straps around his hands, squeezing. And that brought it all back—echoes of ugly words and violent pictures that involved Dean kicking Sam, spitting in his face…

He staggered from it, physically hurting at the cacophony of insults he'd hurled at Sam boomed in his eyes.

Dean bent at the waist to puke on the floor. Castiel grip was tight around his upper arm. "I just cleaned that," Castiel groused.

Wiping his mouth, Dean shot the angel-turned-housewife his nastiest glare. "Sam. Now!"

Castiel didn't relent, so he charged out of the bathroom and yanked open the door. He was barefoot, weaker than a newborn puppy, and probably looked like an animated corpse, but his little brother was had stormed out half-cocked and angrier than a pitbull, and that kickstarted a protective streak that had carried him through much worse. He stumbled outside, wincing at the searing yellow of sunshine. It was spring, but winter still claimed the chill in the air and the frost on the burgeoning grass. The cold sliced clean through him, and he was instantly shivering. Then he was stuck with an entirely different surge of cold when Dean padded towards the parking lot. The Impala sat in her parking spot, gleaming as usual. "He didn't take the car…why wouldn't he take the car?" he muttered, feeling crazed. He scratched his head that was still jumbled and slow, trying to make sense of anything.

It felt like the nastiest hangover of his life: the aching head and the fuzzy confusion about what'd he'd done.

Castiel emerged from a gust of wind. He'd lost that eerie smile and his normally somber countenance had returned, albeit a bit sadder. "I cannot stop you, can I?" He asked.

Dean stared him down, jaw set in determination.

He turned, trenchcoat billowing in the wind. "This way, then."

Dean followed him, and was confused as to why he was walking down the awning-covered strip of motel rooms and away from the car. They reached room 9B and Castiel produced a key and unlocked it. Dean was already pushing into the door, not sure by what he'd find, but already knew it going to be awful.

The room was nearly identical to theirs, decorated with peach wallpaper with faded green bedspreads. The television was on, streaming rays of muted light through the shadowed room. Dean ventured further, expecting to find Sam trussed up like a turkey in the midst of wicked demon-blood cravings or heck, even disposing the bodies of the hunters he'd killed. Instead he was sprawled on his back in the bed. Dean's heart stopped at the sound of shallow, ragged breaths. He dove forward, turning on the light. Sam was bundled in blankets, only his face and shoulders were exposed. The kid was white down to the lips, his mouth was parted and he was sweating, shoulders lurching from the effort to just breathe because he'd been strangled. His neck was a kaleidoscope of puffy, purpling welts.

Dean knew that wasn't the worst of it. It couldn't have been.

With a shaking hand, he pulled the covers back and an unchecked sob burst through his lips as he saw the ugly jagged wounds on his chest, stitched, yet unbandaged. His patch-up job was pretty impressive considering how serious the wounds were, but sloppy as sticky dried blood still stained his torso and arms and hands. The other injuries, a broken finger and some untreated defensive wounds, gruesome suggested that Sam had walked into ambush and didn't even have time to fight back. The last dregs of energy failed him and he knees buckled. He fell, more than sat, on the edge of Sam's bed.

Dean's head snapped to Castiel, wet eyes narrowed in anger. "Did they do this to him? The hunters." He asked, checking Sam's pulse. It was weak and fast. He bundled the blankets around his naked brother.

Castiel nodded, defiantly sure. "Yes."

"And you didn't think to take him a hospital?! You didn't think to go with him?!"

It was his Dean's turn to endure an endlessly intense stare-down. "Do not direct your angers towards me; I am not your servant and I am not your sibling, yet I was searching for a counter-agent," Castiel menaced in the terrifying way only he could, "for you. All the while, Sam was tolerating your nasty tongue and your…torment."

Dean wasn't humbled often, and this felt like one of those rare times. He sighed, shoulders dropping along with the tension. He mumbled an apology to Castiel, knowing that stupid poison—Dean's sickness and his horrible words—and maybe even his wavering belief in his brother had pushed Sam back to his warpath ways. Dean scrubbed his cheeks clean, wishing the relentless guilt was as easy to get rid of as a few stray tears. He cupped his brother's stubbled cheek, hating how gaunt and ill he looked. "I'm going to take care of you, Sammy, okay. You're gonna be fine."

He stood up, and rolled Sam on his right side with meticulous care and braced him there with his bad arm. His little brother's face tightened in pain, and he made a pathetic strangled sound. "I know, Sam. Hang on. Just hang on." He snapped his fingers at Castiel, pointing to the pillows on the other bed. Together, they created a nest of pillows and carefully propped him up on it as to ease his struggle for breath. Dean washed away the old blood and grime from his side, bandaged his chest, treated his arms, and splinted his finger. Exhausted and dizzy from just an hour out of bed, he grabbed Sam's wrist, fingers on his pulse point, and fell asleep.

Thirteen hours later, a ripple of life tremored through Sam's body. It felt like magic when Sam's eyes opened to stare first at the lamp and then at him. Dean tried to smiled, feeling as worn out as he could ever remember. But then Sam's face twisted in fear, and he flung himself back and away. Dean was horrified, frozen, as Sam nearly rolled off the bed. His Adam's apple was bobbing, but all that came out were shrill wisps of screams. Dean moved to calm him down, to keep him from tearing his stitches open, but Castiel beat him to it.

He grabbed Sam's shoulders and attention, and they stared at each other, purposeful and long. There were tears in Sam's eyes. He shook his head minutely. Castiel whispered something. Seconds later, Sam was still agitated, but he wasn't panicking.

Dean couldn't figure out when he was cut out of the loop, or when that freaky loop that included the Vulkan Mind-Meld.

He leaned over Sam, cringing at the roughness of his breathing and the lingering fright in his eyes. "It's over, Sammy, I'm not tweakin' on supernatural mojo anymore. It's okay. I'm so sorry…for everything I said and did…to you. I can't…I'm sorry."

He placed a hand on his shoulder to reassure and comfort. His little brother, the kid he literally died for, recoiled, eyes squeezed eyes shut, chest heaving. It was the universal face of fear. In his years as a hunter, Dean had repelled the depths of unabashed remorse. He'd gotten people killed, including Sammy and his dad, Ellen and Jo. He'd watched delicate life fall slip his fingers and to Hell below. But he'd never sank to the despairing valleys where Sam was terrified of him, where a kindhearted touch was unnerving instead of nurturing. It didn't match the pain of the toxin or even that of Hell. It felt like cosmic failure and tasted of acrid betrayal.

Dean scooted out of Sam's line of sight and into the chair just beyond the bed. He leaned back, and watched as Sam stared at the ceiling. He mumbled silently while his right hand twisted the sheet methodically before Castiel placed his ontop. Eventually, the corded muscles and strain sloughed off him like an unnecessary husk and he settled. He recognized the look and the flickers of discomfort. He'd seen it in Sam as a baby, Sam as a kid, Sam as a young man ready for Stanford.

It was Sam surviving without Dean.

-o-

Dean traded the Gatorade for whiskey.

They'd been on a quest to save the world for almost two years, and it was big and scary and horrible. But most days, if he was lucky, Dean felt detached from it all. Math had never been his thing, and the sheer number of lives in his hands, lives that his actions would directly affect was so staggering, it was incomprehensible. But this…Sam so despondent with from pain and Dean's abuse, this felt like the end of days.

Sam wouldn't speak. He wouldn't wash himself. He wouldn't move. He wouldn't even blink until his eyes teared from being open for so long. Sam was gone, imprisoned in that big brain of his where Dean couldn't reach him, which Dean figured was probably the point. The only signs that he was alive, that he hadn't had a stroke or lapsed into a coma were tiny, heartbreaking whimpers of pain and pupils that dilated and contracted normally.

He took another long pull from the bottle, wondering if Sam had felt like this when he'd unknowingly unleashed Lucifer. If his skin crawled with regret so potent, it choked him. If his stomach constantly churned with guilt so fiery he'd felt like he'd consumed acid. If his heart felt like broken glass rattling around in his chest. Dean had done this. He'd know what was happening, but he couldn't stop himself. And Dean's forgiveness and his quest for redemption had been the only thing keeping him going, and Dean had just A-Bombed it to dust.

He'd thought hideous, unforgiveable things in those outrageously awful days after Sam had left him bleeding in a hotel room with seals falling all around them. He'd run the gambit of emotions. Hate had been the knee-jerk emotion, prominent but shallow, like oil muddying the surface of the water, blocking out the love beneath it. Dean had to absorb what had happened, what Sam had done, and all of those ugly feelings were private and fleeting. But the poison had stripped that away, had given life to sentiments that had died days after they began. Because Sam needed to see through this revenge against Lilith was how their father and even Dean had been taught to cope with grief. Dean's death was at the heart of all the reckless choices he was making, and while Sam was culpable, it he didn't start the Apocalypse on his own…and he certainly didn't break the first seal or the sixty-four others that followed. So as temptingly simple as it had been to blame him for Lucifer's parole or the loss of Bobby's legs or the Hurricane Hell making landfall on the globe, it had been a mistake. A horrible, well-intentioned mistake.

Dean stood up, unbending cramped muscles and weak limbs to pace around the room. It smelled rank and stale, like sweat and despair. He swayed to the window and opened them. It was daylight and air was cold and crisp. He drank again, stumbling and gulping. And was suddenly breathless by how much he missed and needed Ellen. She was Sam's surrogate mom, had adopted him as quickly as Sam had her. She would know what to do. She would hold Sam and coax him out of catatonia and feed him soup. He needed that. He needed something familiar and comfortable, a place he'd feel safe enough to come back to. And Dean wasn't it anymore.

"Bobby," Dean muttered, startled by his voice. "We'll go there." Dean wobbled to the bed and knelt by Sam again, turning his head towards him. He took his hand. The one with the splinted finger he broke. "Sammy, you wanna go to Bobby's? He's only three states over. Tomorrow, we'll roadtrip, okay?" Dean rubbed at the lax fingers, hoping to trigger some kind of reaction. He studied his pale face and vacant eyes with stillborn hope. Sam didn't move, just blinked in sluggishly, a base instinct. "Good. I'll drive."

Dean traded the whiskey for coffee.

At dawn, he bundled Sam into the car, with pillows and blankets, and floored it all the way to South Dakota .

-o-

Sam was floating or flying. He couldn't quite decide. Sometimes, it was aimless and blue; others there were rapids of fear and the skies of sweeping pain. He would touch down, drift ashore only to be inundated by soul-sapping weight of a broken body, nastiness echoing in his ears; the roughness of a hand in his. But it was too intense and to horrifying to stay. The tide would pull him back and the wind would carry him away. And Sam didn't mind at all.

-o-

It wasn't the first time Bobby played host to injured Winchesters, so he wasn't at all shocked to see them arrive, but he was flabbergasted that it was Dean was standing; and Sam decidedly wasn't. They got him settled in the downstairs bedroom and hunkered down for the long days ahead. When Dean rose to check Sam's temperature, he swayed, listing into the wall. He was running on caffeine and fear and nothing else. Bobby, still quick with reflexes despite the chair, snagged his sleeve, but was barely able to keep him on his feet. "You look like you need this chair more than me. Sit your ass down, boy. You need to sleep."

Dean stared at Sam's blank face, eyes thankfully closed as he appeared to be sleeping, and couldn't move. Instead, he leaned propped himself against the shelves behind him. "I can't…Sam's freakin' Rain Man and I did this to him."

Bobby's eyes tightened in sympathy. "You remember bein' whammied?"

He tasted bile. "Every awful thing I thought about him…I said it. I blamed him for your," he gestured to the chrome elephant in the room, his face sour with shame. "I told him that...I hated him. I said that…he got Jess killed…I told him…I was glad Mom was dead…because she'd hate what he'd become."

The air in the room got thin and his legs betrayed him again. He ended up on his knees, gulping for air like a dying fish, hand cinched around the denim of Bobby's jeans. "I kicked him…and I hurt him, Bobby. I mean…I felt some…pretty nasty things after Lucifer's coming out party. But we were past it…we friggin' joke about it. That stupid poison, it dredged up all of that crap…and I threw it in his face. It was worse than the siren."

"Chokin' on guilt isn't going to unring the bell, son. Neither will ignorin' the fact that you were sick as a dog for days. Sam'll be okay."

Anger bored through the defeaning remorse and Dean was grateful for it. He rode the livid wave to his feet and glowered at the older man before him. "Be okay? The freakin' world's in a freefall. Sam's set up to be Lucifer's mascot and on vacation in his brain. We're not even in the ballpark of okay."

His head snapped to Sam so fast that his neck cracked. Dean charged over to Sam's bed, gripping his lax brother by the shoulders, sick of the distant blankess of his face. His skin was too warm from fever and too dry from dehydration. His neck muscles were limp and loose and his head sagged and wobbled as Dean shook him. "Sammy, wake up. You need to kick my ass for unloadin' on you. Sam. PLEASE." Dean said. And it struck him how fast things could change. It was just like in the bar. They'd been laughing and goofing off and then everything whipped into panic and pain like the flip of a switch or the push of a button.

Now Dean's shortlived frustration had morphed to grief-driven desperation. Sam's eyes were open, but empty and they rattled around like marbles in a dryer. Dean let out a dry sob of air, realizing what he was doing, and reeled him in with one arm. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Dean blubbered though he wasn't even able to cry. "Guess your big brother is a jerk, huh, Sam? You were right, bitch. You win, okay?"

The silence stretched out as Dean gently laid him down, smoothing out his hair and checking to make sure his tantrum hadn't popped any of Sam's stitches.

"You done, Shirley McClaine?" Bobby asked. Dean forgot he was still there.

Dean twisted back towards Bobby, taking back control. "Call all the freaks in your Rolodex. Healers, witches, psychics, resurrect Pamela if you have to. If that doesn't work, I'll take some dreamroot and drag his ass out. I want my brother back. Now."

He shook his head and glided over to Sam's bed. "If Sam doesn't want to be found, tearing him out of this ain't get the job done. He's entitled to a breakdown. We've all had plenty."

Dean shook his head. "This isn't good for him, Bobby. He'll get sicker."

He crossed his arms against his chest, proverbially putting his foot down. "Sam's done this before…he'll come back when he's ready."

Dean knew every splinter, fever and break Sam ever had and he'd never checked out of life before. "You goin' senile, old man, I think I'd remember if Sam had…oh." There was a cavern of time when Dean was in the pit and Sam was topside.

"It was after we planted you in the ground. He kinda checked out just like this." Bobby picked up Sam's hand, and held it fiercely. "He came back, but it took a while."

"What'd you do, Bobby?"

Bobby actually smiled, eyes shadowed beneath his baseball hat. "Played some of the noise you call music from the Impala."

Dean's eyes definitely teared at that, and he turned towards Sam, who was at least breathing a bit deeper—not gasping for air like he had been earlier. If Dean ignored the bruises on his forehead, the black eye and the purple handprints on his throat, it looked like he was sleeping with his eyes open. "You are so busted. You like my music, you liar." He knew Sam needed him, but sometimes, he didn't realized how much.

This, however, wasn't one of those times.

He swallowed the tears in his throat, his eyes drifting towards the rows of books on the shelves flanking the wall. He bypassed the supernatural texts and the novels, and settled on one Sam would like. Supreme Court Precedents and their Impact on American Justice. He handed the tome to Bobby. "Start reading."