Idea…so what would have happened if Osiris had taken Dean's tongue in episode 'Defending your Life' From Season 7.

Supernatural does not belong to me, although I wish it did. I am simply playing Kirpke's sandbox for a bit. All rights and ownership are the property of Kripke and the CW network. I am not making any money from this; it is for my own personal pleasure.

Please Review: They help shape the story. I do not have a Beta, all mistakes are mine...and unintentional.

This chapter contains very graphic imagery throughout, don't like...don't read. Could have a slightly AU feel to it, if you squint.

Not Slash.

Chapter 7

Can't Lose You Brother

Sam watched with a mixture of horror and terror as he was catapulted unwillingly into the past…watching Jessica burning on the ceiling of their apartment in Palo Alto. His breath shuddered in his throat and he was instantly thrusting his hands up over his ears, trying to drown out the hyperventilating breaths that were coming from Dean. The skin reddened and blistered as Dean thrashed on the bed…suddenly Dean's body stilled and Sam found himself unconsciously opening his eyes to look for the cause in the sudden change. He couldn't see anything, only that Dean wasn't moving, his body had gone completely still…his older brother's chest wasn't moving but the wounds were healing themselves. Sam sank into the old plastic chair situated near the metal, fifties style table, staring at Dean's form…silently imploring his brother to wake up.

He hadn't known that Dean still carried a torch of guilt where Jessica's death was concerned. Sam knew that he himself had felt guilty for years after that tragic and horrific night, but he had always thought that Dean had accepted that Sam didn't blame him…never had. He knew that it couldn't be the death of their mother that had triggered that death scenario, it had to be Jess. So…now his problem was, how many of the people that they hadn't managed to save over the years were still haunting his brother? Sam dropped his head into his hands as he saw his brother take an easy breath, the first easy rise and fall of his chest that Dean had experienced for over an hour, his body having reverted to its uninjured state. If Osiris had wanted to punish both of them…damn…that son of a bitch had picked a devastating way to do it. Sam had never been good at watching his brother suffer, he had seen so much of it after their father died…and that particular thought sent a set of fears racing through his system. Sam knew that Dean had never really forgiven himself for their father's death…next to Sam's own...he was probably the most pivotal person that Dean had been unable to save. Although, his brother had found the cross-roads demon and managed to get Sam back…in the process they had inadvertently allowed their father to 'climb' up out of Hell…sorta rescuing him. But Sam knew that Dean hadn't ever really let that guilt go…had just buried the pain until he'd piled so many other 'disappointments' on top of it that he could leave it alone.

Sam leaned back and ran long fingers through his dark hair, allowing it to fall across his eyes as he maneuvered his blue-green eyes to back to his brother's still unmoving form. The only indication that Dean wasn't dead was the slight rise and fall of his chest. He felt the hysteria bubbling beneath the surface again as he was assaulted with the image of his brother with his chest ripped opened and his normally expressive green eyes glazed in death. Oh God….I can't go through that again. He thought as an almost tangible pain shot through his chest and pierced his heart. As much as Dean irritated the shit out of him…and he did…Sam couldn't imagine what his life would be like without the presence of his snarky older brother. They had faced so many things together…things that neither of them should have been able to survive, but they had…more than that, they had won…against all odds. Heaven and Hell had not been able to defeat the Winchester brothers when they were united…and Sam had been sent to the cage as a result of that union.

He knew that his brother had thought that he was back after a year and that Dean had immediately given up a life that he was carving out for himself with Lisa to help Sam. But then they had learned that Sam had been brought back without a soul and that he didn't give a rat's ass about his brother. Oh he knew that he should care about Dean, that is wasn't normal that he didn't, but he hadn't talked to Dean…and instead…his older brother had put the pieces together. People that thought that Dean was 'dumber' of the two of them didn't know them very well. Dean was fairly brilliant with his ability to reason out a solution. And then Dean had accomplished something that shouldn't have been remotely possible. He had found Death…the big guy…big daddy reaper himself and convinced him to retrieve Sam's soul from the cage.

That year of 'lost memories' had haunted Sam to the point that he had tried to figure out what he had 'forgotten' and been rewarded with a small taste of the living hell that had been Lucifer's cage. He still woke up on random mornings with the feeling of his skin melting off his face, the fire spreading rapidly up his torso and climbing into his long hair, igniting it as it travelled against gravity. The Cage that he had been inadvertently stuck in with Michael and Lucifer as they battled out their mutual anger and resentment against one another on an almost cosmic scale. Most of the time they took their frustration with each out on Sam…his soul was so severely damaged that Death had had to put up a wall, to protect Sam's mind from those 'nasty ' memories…and then Castiel had brought the Hell wall tumbling down in his misguided attempt to control Dean…it hadn't worked. The angel hadn't understood that Dean couldn't be controlled…not when he thought he was in the right. His older brother would fight to the death for the things that he believed in…and he would fight equally hard against the things he knew were wrong…and Castiel had been wrong.

So now Sam was stuck with the resurfacing 'cage' memories, his actual time in the cage, and his brother's guilt for having 'let' him jump in the pit in the first place. Although, it didn't appear that was one of the deaths that Dean would be reliving…or at least Sam prayed that it wasn't. His eyes were pulled back to the still quiet form of his brother and he blinked rapidly in frustration at their constantly fucked up lives, his hand ran across his face as he tried to bring his fractured mind back to the problem at hand. Bobby… He would call Bobby, maybe he could bring some of that Afric….Oh shit! We have some in the trunk. Sam's brain supplied the information and he was too preoccupied to wonder where exactly that knowledge had come from.

He jumped to his feet, "I'll be right back Dean." He stated as he ran for the door, throwing it open and rushing to the trunk of the Impala. Sam riffled through hidden compartment searching for the bottle that he somehow knew was back there. They had kept it on hand after the whole incident with Bobby all those years ago. It had come in handy on a few other occasions where they needed information from an unconscious or comatose patient. His fingers brushed past Dean's sawed off shotgun…the one that they had found in the storage unit after he got back from Hell and Sam felt his emotions rise again at the thought that he wouldn't see it in Dean's hands again. No…he wouldn't think like that.

Sam's fingers finally closed around the cool glass of the African Dream-root and he pulled it from the soft leather it had been wrapped in. He gently dropped the trunk lid and jogged back to the room, he heard Dean's reaction before he even made it back into the room. The gagging and the gurgling sounds making their way into the parking lot made Sam want to collapse and cover his ears. His legs stilled of their own volition and he inhaled deeply, pushing himself to enter the room. Sam didn't want to know what Dean was suffering now and he knew that he didn't want to see it…he already had so many images of Dean dying…many of them coming from the trickster…that he could have a different nightmare every night for the next year and never repeat a single death scenario.

When Sam finally rounded the corner and stepped back into their motel room, he nearly dropped the glass bottle as his eyes found his brother's taunt and arched body. Dean's eyes were being burned out his skull and he was again bleeding from a severe knife wound to the stomach…this time Sam knew exactly which death Dean was reliving. They had both felt extremely guilty after Pamela's death…but Dean had carried that burden so much heavier than Sam. Mostly because they had only brought her into their messed up world because Dean wanted…no Dean needed to know what had brought him back from Hell…an angel...Castiel. That had been their introduction to another level of the supernatural that they had never suspected even existed...angels. Although looking back, they should have suspected it, since there were demons...it made sense that there was an antithesis to demons...angels. But no one that they had ever known had ever seen the winged bastards, so neither Dean nor Sam had been particularly ready to believe in them...at first.

The acrid smell in the room made Sam want to vomit, but he bit the bile back down in his throat as he crossed to the sink. He turned the water on full at its hottest setting and waited with waning patience for it to heat up. Once it had he put the root in the steaming water and watched as it dissolved into the liquid, he crossed quickly to his brother, trying not to look at his face. The eye sockets were blackened and his face was contorted in agony as his mouth worked and no sound emitted. Sam reached down and pulled a few of Dean's hairs from his head and plunked them into the hot liquid. He walked around to his bed, sitting on the edge as he shot a quick text to Bobby, telling him exactly what he was doing and why. He didn't want to talk to Bobby directly because he knew that the older hunter would want him to wait to do anything until he could be there to back Sam up.

Sam wasn't willing to wait, he had to talk to Dean and try to reason with Dean…and that was going to have to happen inside his brother's head. He gulped back the bitter yellow brew and laid back waiting for it to send him inside Dean's world…he didn't have to wait long.

Sam entered a world that made no sense to him...Dean was everywhere and nowhere. He could sense his brother in the very fabric of the room he entered, but he couldn't see Dean yet...he simply knew that this was Dean. His eyes flickered around the small room and he was immediately tackled from behind. Sam fell hard onto the...What is that? Gravel? Inside a house...but then he was no longer inside a house, he was in Bobby's garage and the Impala was in the center of the room. He looked at the car and then at the room itself, the car was normal...the room was not. He tried to pick himself up off the floor when he felt something settled painfully between his shoulder blades and push his face back into the gravel. The sharp rocks grinding into his cheek as he felt the blood trickle from where a couple of them had actually cut into his skin.

"What the hell are you doing here?" A voice that Sam would recognize anywhere growled out from above him, never alleviating the pressure on his back.

TBC…

Author's Note: Sam to the rescue. Not sure whether or not Dean will appreciate it and how will Osiris take this intrusion on his plan to 'cleanse' Dean of his guilt. More soon…

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