(So major thanks to Souless666 and lenail125. It was a tough one to write, and I wasn't sure I had gotten reactions right. It's so easy writing about happy fluffy moments, and tough writing depressing things without going too dramatic.)

Chapter Six

At four he remembered being confused. Not about his mother. He understood the concept that his mother was for all purposes gone. She was up in heaven with angels everyone kept saying. The first time he'd thought she'd come back when she was finished, but later he figured out that meant she was gone for good. He wouldn't see her again. No he was confused about his father. His dad was someone who woke up early and went for a run in the morning before clocking in at the garage. His dad would smile and tickle him whenever he got home from work. His dad would grab the football and they'd toss it a few times in the backyard. His dad even promised he could play on a league when he got older.

At four, once the fire had burned hot and long, leaving Dean and his family homeless and motherless, Dean was confused. His dad wasn't the same. He smelled funny a lot of the times. He would go the day grunting rather than speaking words, and rarely caught Dean's eye. He was no longer attentive to Dean or Sam. Mike Guenther, the owner of the shop he worked at, and his wife Kate were letting them live in their home for a little while, and they would help Dean. Miss Julie would even come over as well, and play with Dean and Sammy. His Daddy and Mr. Mike used to be friends, but whenever his Dad did talk he usually yelled at Mr. Mike about not wanting to work, and not wanting to get up. And Sammy. He was told by his dad to take care of Sammy. So he was the only one allowed to feed him, and change him. He would rock Sammy to sleep at night.

He did wish his father would get up and help though. He remembered standing at the foot of his father's bed and jostling his father's leg. Sometimes the only word he would say to anyone other than Sammy, in a single day would be Dad. In hope the "knock out juice" he'd taken the night before would wear off and he would wake up.

Now Dean sighed and scrubbed a hand across his shadow. In their shared room (Despite any arguments or big talk they never had the heart to get separate rooms) Dean now stood at the foot of his little brother's bed. Sam's system was free of knock out juice but he was in the same position he could recall his father all those years ago. Lying on his stomach his eyes squeezed shut. Only Sam wasn't asleep. Sleep would mean that he would be plagued with images of his girlfriend on the ceiling, and unless Dean would crush up sleeping pills in his brother's juice there was no sleep.

"Sam." Dean sighed. He put his hand on his brother's leg and jostled it. "Hey, I need you to get up. It's noon, and you smell dude."

Sam's eyes pressed closed harder.

Dean growled and kicked at his brother's bed frame. He was trying to be supportive, but he was tired of his brother being comatose. "I know you're not asleep. So get up. Get up and take a shower."

"I showered yesterday." Sam muttered into his pillow softly.

Dean still caught it though. "You showered a few days ago." He met Sam's eyes when his brother finally raised his head and looked up. "You were comatose all day yesterday. I get it dude, it's eating you up inside and you can't move, you have no appetite, and you just want to cease to exist. But you can't let the grief end you. You have to get up, Sam."

Sam weakly pushed up from the bed and put a hand to his aching head as he made his way vertical. "I'll shower." He didn't hear Sam in the tone. Sam's sarcasm, and snark had disappeared once they'd cleared the fire.

"And eat when you're finished." Dean scowled and balanced his brother when he started to sway.

"'M not hungry, Dean." Sam muttered sleepily.

Dean scowled but didn't fist his hands and hit the wall like he wanted too. "You feeling lightheaded? Headache? Your stomach maybe not growling, but hollow? Or maybe your limbs they feel weak and it seems like it's taking a lot of effort to even get to the fucking bathroom? Well that would be your body running on fumes. You haven't eaten in a few days. I was lenient before, but not now. You will eat something, whether you're hungry or not."

"Yer bossy." Sam muttered and rubbed at his eyes.

"I'm a big brother, that comes with the job description." Dean finally released his brother and let him sink down on the toilet. "Now do I need to strip down too and hold you up or are you good?"

Sam wrinkled his nose at the thought of taking a shower with his brother. For once his voice held a tone of disgust and Dean nearly caught a hint of Sam in it. "I can stand up by myself."

"Good." Dean gave a slight smile. He headed towards the door and turned before clearing the doorway. "Don't lock the door. I'll bring in a change of clothes for you and take the old ones."

"Dean?" Sam asked studying the shower.

Dean sighed. "Yes?"

"Where's the razor?" An eyebrow had shot up and Sam was giving his big brother a hurt look. To think that Dean felt the need to hide the razor from him stung.

Dean shrugged. He'd hidden everything that could cause physical harm for good measure. All the guns and knives were in secure places, and any medication was locked in Bobby's medicine cabinet downstairs. Instead he gestured towards his own face, emphasizing the very evident facial hair that hadn't been dealt with the past week- or two. "I dunno, I haven't used it in a little while. You need to shave?"

"No." Sam scowled.

Dean played off the exchange with confusion. "Okay then, what's the big deal?"

"Nothing." Sam drooped on the toilet seat. "Go away."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Whatever, I'll be back and get you some clean clothes." He closed the door behind him and listened to the sound of Sam mutter and grunt as he stripped off his clothes and stepped into the shower. He waited until the curtain was drawn and the water started before he headed to their room.

It had now been two awful weeks. The first week they'd stayed behind in Palo Alto, to clear Sam's good name, and they had checked around to see if the demon was still there. Bobby had insisted that the signs pointed to no, but Sam had been adamant. If the bastard was anywhere in the vicinity, he was ready to bust his balls. Once they'd made it to the house however all will power to do anything had disappeared. Sam wasn't getting up to eat. Sam wasn't getting up to shower. Sam wasn't getting up to do anything. Even Buddy would come around and drop his tennis ball to the side of Sam's bed, or hop up with the boy and curl up at his feet or side. Sam wasn't even responding to what was practically his best friend.

This would be the second time Dean had finally urged Sam to get up and take care of himself. And if this continued next week, well, it just wouldn't. Dean would allow his brother to mourn for a little while, but the kid needed to start working on dealing with it. Besides, Jessica would have wanted it that way as well.

Sam was in the middle of showering when Dean stepped back in the bathroom and switched out the rancid clothes for clean fresh ones. When he'd dumped the clothes in the basement next to the dryer and washer, he stepped back upstairs and collapsed onto one of the kitchen chairs.

Bobby looked up from his book. "Heard the shower going."

"Yeah, he's finally bathing." Dean sighed and rubbed a hand across his face. "I can't let him do this much longer Bobby."

"I know." Bobby shut the book spreading the dust around. "He's just trying to come to terms with it all. After the fire he was so sure the thing was around still, but- but now."

The trail had gone cold. The signs that they'd followed and not noticed until the fire, had disappeared completely. It was as if Yellow Eyes had taken a dump on Sam's life and just disappeared. "Yeah, the demons gone. I don't know where he's off to but, none of us can track him anywhere right now."

"He might have gone underground." Bobby frowned. "Just jostled the kid and ran, but I don't know why."

"He was happy." Dean sighed. He looked up at Bobby and fought back emotions. "He was going to propose."

Bobby stilled. He'd known about the visions. He'd known about the overwhelming similarities between his mother's death and his girlfriend's death. But no one had mentioned anything about a potential engagement. His heart bled further for the kid. "He got the ring?"

"In the cliché little box." Dean ached for a beer, but that would require pulling one from hiding. "Kid was ready to go down on one knee and start that baseball team."

Bobby dropped the book to the table. "You didn't mention that."

"It wasn't helping us find him." Dean shrugged. "Besides, Sam wasn't ready to have that brought up. Hell, he still isn't ready."

"I'll keep it on the down low." Bobby pushed back on the chair and stood up staring the coffee machine. It was a little late, but if he couldn't have a beer he'd have a cup of coffee. He'd just switch one vice for another. "Need a cup."

"Please." Dean moaned.

They sat in silence. Conversation wasn't high in the house since Jessica Moore's death. It had hit all of them hard. Not only was it hard to see Sam suffering the way he was, but it was hard not having her around. She'd become a staple in the family. She'd learned everything about Sam, hunting and all, and accepted the boy for all he was. She'd called on Bobby and Dean's bullshit whenever they would talk. Act like one of the guys and share a beer. And even fought with them during football games. She had been so good for Sam, and both knew it would be a while before Sam opened up to anyone ever again.

"He's still using his college brain." Dean joked. He flinched however at his familiar term. Sam was no longer in college, Yellow Eyes had effectively chased him out. "He noticed the razor was missing. I tried to be sneaky too."

"He's aware of how careful you are trying to be around him." John broke in as he walked in from outside. The door closed louder that it had opened and the dog door flap bounced up and down when Buddy pounced in. "Remember when I got pissed because Mike and Kate were tip toeing around me."

Dean scowled. "I'm surprised you do. You were at the bottom of a bottle last I could remember."

"Not a lie." John nodded joining Dean. "But my point still stands."

John had been urging Dean to stop coddling Sam. It wasn't helping the kid any. All it was doing was helping Sam not face reality when he was moping, and piss the kid off when he was angry. Two emotions Sam was feeling a plethora of.

"Well what would you have me do, Dad? I can bark orders at him. Maybe have him run a few laps around the house." Dean cocked his head and made a thoughtful expression. It would have read with sincerity, but both of the older men knew better. "Oh, I know, I can feed into the revenge that Sam must want and have him go incessantly after this demon. Wait sorry, that was you."

John narrowed his eyes. "I don't want you to bark orders, nor do I want you to stir him up. But the boy needs to start getting up in the morning, urge him to exercise and work off some of that emotion. He needs to have a schedule he can follow until he can do normal again. I wish I had done that."

Dean's face softened. "Look I'm-"

"Don't apologize." John ground out. "This is hard on all of us seeing the boy this way. He may be your brother, but he's our son."

Bobby frowned. About a year after he'd returned to his boys and was visiting regularly John had started to refer to the boys as Bobby's sons as well. It wasn't meant to be mean, or offensive, but it was the truth. Bobby and John worked as a sort of couple to make sure the boys got everything they needed. Bobby just wished it didn't make it sound like they actually were a couple.

"John, there has to be a better way to explain that." Bobby groused.

"Point being. We all want Sam to get better. And Sam wallowing isn't doing that."

"I know." Dean finally sighed. "I just told Bobby I couldn't let Sam do this anymore. I'm not sure what I'll do but, he'll have to start getting up in the morning, and eating for sure. He's too freakishly tall to not eat."

The water cut off upstairs, and Dean heard the pressure die off in the pipes. "Okay. Can you heat something up Bobby? I'm dragging Sammy down here whether he likes it or not."

"Yeah, I can make him something real quick." Bobby nodded.

"Thanks." Dean didn't need to look to know that there were two pairs of concerned eyes following him towards the stairs and up until he was out of sight. He had already gotten the speech from Bobby about how he could dote on his brother, but he had to take care of himself in the process. Dean said he would but he wasn't doing a good job of it. He had gotten little sleep sitting over his little brother as he tossed and turned in the night. He told Bobby he got sleep but the darkness under his eyes told a different story.

At the bathroom door Dean leaned up against the frame and listened to his brother as he shuffled around the bathroom. One he heard the zip of his jeans Dean pushed the door open in time to see Sam buttoning the pants.

"Dean." Sam groaned, after he registered that it was in fact his brother imposing on him. "You could wait."

"You have pants on." Dean shrugged. "Now the shirt and we can go downstairs."

Sam muttered as he picked up a toothbrush unsolicited and scowled at his brother. "I don't need a baby sitter, besides I'm not-"

"Whatever you're about to say better not end in hungry, because we discussed this before. You are eating. I already have Bobby downstairs making something." Dean growled.

Sam just rolled his eyes and put a line of toothpaste on the brush before scrubbing it across his teeth. He didn't work too hard at it; it was just to get the stale taste out of his mouth. After a rinse and spit, he looked up to find Dean with his arms crossed glowering up at his brother. "I'll eat something." Sam rolled his eyes. "Quit mother-henning."

"Have you met me?" Dean's scowl deepened.

"Unfortunately." Sam shuffled out of the bathroom, but for the first time in a long time he wore a slight grin.

Dean wanted to collapse his knees weak the second he saw his brother's lips turn slightly upwards. He'd seen them do that before in the passing weeks, but usually the expression failed to meet his eyes. This time there was a glow there that hadn't been there before. He played off his emotion. "Unfortunately!? I will have you know I am the best person I know."

"Suree." Sam's grin widened for a split second before he pushed past his brother and started for the stairs.

"It's true." Dean playfully smacked his brother's arm. He sniffed at the air and exhaled dramatically. "I smell bacon."

"Worse than a bloodhound." Sam muttered, but his blank expression had slid back into place. He'd allowed all the emotion he could out. Sam stopped, but he didn't turn. "Thanks, Dean. For everything."

Dean's playfulness dropped. The large part of his heart devoted to his snot nosed little brother practically started to bleed. Dean cuffed the back of Sam's neck and kept his calloused hand there for a second before clearing his throat. "Hey, anytime. I got your back."

"I'm going to head to my room then." Sam said quietly trying to play off what his brother had demanded a little while ago.

"Nope." Dean gave his brother a shove towards the stairs. "Nice play with the sentiment but you're still eating."

By the time the brothers had made it down the stairs and they'd entered the kitchen Sam was done with his protests. He couldn't explain it. Food had no appeal. It didn't look good, and it didn't smell good. Al it did was churn at his stomach. The last meal he had he'd chucked it back up again.

Dean cuffed his brother's neck again, only this time it wasn't a sentimental move, it was to force his brother into the chair. Sam took it without complaint. Bobby carefully looked over from the stove at the kid slumped in the chair. "Nice to see you up, boy."

Sam didn't respond.

Dean dropped a glace of juice in front of his brother. "Use words."

Sam managed a decent bitch face. "Thanks, Bobby."

It may have been annoyance, but Dean was happy with what he had gotten today. Sam had actually gotten out of his bed, and showered. He was going to eat a meal, and he'd gotten his brother to smile, and make a bitch face all in one day. Baby steps.

Bobby plated the eggs and strip of bacon and put it in front of the boy. He noticed Dean wrinkle his nose at the meager amount on the plate. "Here you go, Son. Your stomach hasn't had a lot of food the last couple of days, so we're going to start slow okay. We want you keeping down food."

Sam nodded but looked down at the plate like Bobby was serving a platter of severed fingers. "Thanks."

Conversation didn't start until Sam had dug his fork into the eggs and taken at least a single bite. Afterwards it remained polite and light. When Sam's plate was cleaned save the bacon, Dean swiped the strip off knowing his brother wasn't going to eat it. It was like they were starting all over again. It seemed not too long ago, a skinny-assed twelve-year-old sat at the table so sure he was going back to a life of motel to motel, so he didn't want to get too used to food. Now Sam was too sad to even think about eating. He desperately wished his brother could be normal.

"Any sign." Sam asked. There wasn't a twinge of anger. The angry phase had started after Sam had cried. He'd run himself ragged trying to find yellow eyes. Dean didn't allow himself to feed into his brother's anger then. Sam was too much like his father and he didn't want Sam going down the vengeance road.

"None yet. I however have one of Ellen's guys on it. Apparently the man that works the bar and sports a mullet has a techie background. Kid went to MIT. Course he got kicked out, but he is a genius with a computer." John stated.

Dean chuckled. "How would you know?" His father couldn't even work a flip phone.

John ignored his eldest in favor of watching his younger son. "I spoke with him at the bar about all the notes I had on trying to find this son of a bitch, and how difficult it was trying to find it all manually, and all he did was plug in the conditions. He can go back in time, and tell me where Yellow Eyes was before. Says that if he gets any kind of notice about him now, the computer will instantly tell him. And he of course will call me."

"You trust someone enough to give them your notes?" Sam's tone changed slightly but he couldn't muster a smile.

"I've had enough discussions with him. I only knew that he was able to find hunts that no one knew about. Except for the mullet he's alright." John shrugged. "What about you, Sam? Any headaches?"

He wasn't worried about the headaches. He was worried about what came with the headaches. One time, when Sam had nearly made it to the shower he'd collapsed and gripped his head. It wasn't a headache. All three men knew that despite the lack of hunting in the boy's life, he could handle pain like the rest of them. No this was skull splitting pain. He'd fainted. It took two of them to wrestle Sam in bed, and by the time Sam had woken up there was panting with tears streaming down his face.

His arm falling across his eyes to drown out the light. "Woman is going to die." Sam had moaned finally.

John and Bobby looked shocked. They'd gotten the visions discussion from Dean, with a few grunts from Sam. But they hadn't seen the kid in action. John however had the sense to flick off the light. From what he had seen his boy must have had an awful pounding in his head.

"How does she die, Sam? Where is she?" Dean asked instantly.

Confusion had mixed in with his sorrow. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

Sam thought hard about it, or he was in pain. They couldn't tell with his expressions anymore. "The other woman touched her, and she fell over. She didn't mean to. She got scared."

"You don't know where?"

"They were in a hotel room. But there was a bunch of flyers on the bureau for things to do in Billings?" Sam muttered. "Other than that…"

From there Bobby had pieced together Billings, Montana. The place was huge though. Biggest city in Montana, and John on his way over got the call from Bobby that he'd looked into the news there. Young woman found dead in hotel room. Apparently a Jennifer Stallings was headed home to introduce her girlfriend Lily Baker to her family. Jennifer was found dead in her hotel room, no foul play discovered. Her heart had simply stopped. However, Lily was gone. She hadn't even taken her things with her. Another body was found of a taxi man, without the taxi. Once again no poison, no markings on the body, his heart had just stopped. They were still looking for the car and the girl.

"I had a small headache for a little while afterwards, but-" He didn't need to finish. He hadn't seen anything else. "I never asked, was she ever found?"

"No." John answered. Once he made it there, he'd played FBI, and come up with nothing. "She was born however in 1983."

Dean leaned forward in his seat. He hadn't gotten that information. "Was there a fire?"

"That's where it gets weird." John scowled. "No, there wasn't. Best thing that I can come up with is that Mary went to check on Sam."

"Maybe if mom or dad hadn't checked on the baby-" Dean let that thought sink in.

"They'd still be alive." Sam finished. His voice low and tired.

Dean scowled. "I didn't mean it like that Sam."

"I know." Sam scooted back in the chair. "I'm going back upstairs."

Dean didn't fight his brother on the matter. He'd go up and talk to him in a little. "You're getting up and having dinner later."

Sam didn't respond but he didn't fight Dean on the matter either. Dean waited until he heard the door shut upstairs. "So all those other visions he's had, they could be tied to other children? I mean maybe they have some messed up connection we don't know about."

"I don't know Dean. When he's up to it, we can ask him about the other visions. You said he looked them up?" John rubbed a tired hand across his stubble.

Dean shrugged. "That's what he said. I didn't get around to asking just how many he actually placed."

Bobby grunted as he stood up and put Sam's plate in the sink. "I say we call in the cavalry. What does Missouri have to say about this?"

"About what? The children?" Dean asked.

"Everything. This is kind of her area of expertise. She's gotten thoughts and images from the demon. Also, she gets visions on the regular as well, what's to say she can't school Sam in what he's going through." Bobby offered.

"Because he won't be doing it long." John growled. "I'm finding a way to end this. To end whatever Sam has."

"And what if Sam is just a natural psychic. Maybe his abilities hadn't revealed themselves until now. What if the reason this creature is after these kids, is because they can see visions, or they can kill by touch, or whatever other abilities are out there?" Bobby growled back. "What if there is nothing to cure. This could just be Sam."

"It's not possible." John set his jaw firmly.

"And how do you know that. You couldn't even get your family medical history." Bobby felt himself boiling.

Dean thought long. He'd looked into all the books Bobby had on a way to stop his brother from seeing these visions of death. But maybe that wasn't the answer. Maybe his brother was just naturally meant to see them. "That's true dad. We know nothing about our family. Maybe there was a psychic in there somewhere we just don't know about."

"We know enough."

Dean frowned. "You barely knew mom's parents. They died before you were married. And unless mom brought up her family." His dad stayed quiet. "Then we know nothing about her side. Then there's your family. All we know about is your mom, the Whites. Your dad-" John's dad had run out on him when he was younger. Dean always figured that factored into his own father's need to run.

"Yeah. I'm still looking into it though." John stated firmly. "I'll double check the Campbell's, but no son of mine is-"

"Is what dad?" Dean growled. "You think this makes Sam a monster? Having visions doesn't turn them into that. You trust Missouri right. Why not Sam?"

"Your twisting words." John scowled. He slapped his hands hard on the table. He gave a firm glance to both of the men. "Call Missouri on training the kid. But I swear to you there is no need for it. He won't have this much longer."

(If you have reached the end of this chapter then please leave a review or a PM. I love hearing from you guys. Once again, if you also notice something doesn't quite add up with my story or if you notice that a sentence is off or I've misspelled something, then please inform me. I try and read through these stories a ton before I post, but I guess my minds starts seeing what I intended to write, rather than what was I actually put down. No feelings hurt, I promise.)