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"Dean..."

Dean lurched up from the chair, sending it skidding backwards across the room. He clutched at Sam's hand, watching him desperately as his eyes fluttered. His heart leapt into his throat as Sam moaned.

"Sammy! Hey, man, you okay? Sam, can you hear me?"

Sam's brow furrowed and he rolled his head towards Dean's voice. His fingers grasped weakly at Dean's, fumbling numbly. But the words that passed through his lips were far from what Dean had been expecting.

"Please, D-Dean, I can't... c-can't dream this... anymore... pl-please..."

Dean blinked in confusion. "You're not dreaming, Sammy," he said gently. "You're awake now."

"Nuh," Sam mumbled. "Tr-Tried to s-save you... I-I'm trying, I swear..." A tear suddenly slid from the corner of his eye, trickling down his cheek. "I-I don't... think... about anythin' else... I t-try and I try... and I kn-know... s'all my fault..."

Dean stared at his brother, lost for words. What was he talking about? The deal? Jesus, he was actually crying. Dean bent closer, squeezing Sam's hand, searching for words.

"Sammy, its okay. I made that deal, not you. And I would do it again, a hundred times over. And I know you're trying to help, I know, okay? And its alright, because eventually we'll work something out."

That last sentence was dead on his tongue. He knew Sam had been trying to help him, and he knew that his brother was coming up with nothing. It was time for them to accept that maybe it was because there just wasn't a solution to this out there. It was time for them to realize that he was well and truly screwed to hell. But now... now just wasn't the time to bring that up. Not with Sam lying in a hospital bed. Dean reached over with his free hand and pressed the button for the nurse, keeping contact with Sam with his other.

"Sammy, man, you hear me? Everything's gonna be fine. Can you look at me, man?"

Sam's eyelids flickered open and his eyes roved over the ceiling, glazed and blank. Dean felt his forehead again and bit his lip at the heat radiating off it. Sam definately had a fever. He was probably just delerious. He groaned inwardly - he'd had enough experiences with a delerious Sam to last him a lifetime - but he couldn't help but tremble with joy at the thought that Sam was awake. He wasn't going to spend the rest of his life as a vegetable. He was going to be okay.

"Please... pl-please... c-can't take this... D-Dean, please..."

Dean's gut wrenched and he stabbed the button again. "Sammy, its okay. I'm right here, Sam, I'm right next to you."

"Dean!" Sam's eyes snapped wide, his whole body rigidly stiffening. "G-Get behind me... no... NO! GORDON, STOP!"

His fist jerked upwards and Dean caught it reflexively, flinching back slightly in surprise. He fought the failing arm back onto the bed, trying to comfort Sam grimly at the same time.

"Its okay, Sam, calm down, Gordon isn't here. Hey! Sammy, relax!"

Sam suddenly began to shake, his eyes bright with tears that began to flow down his face. A sob caught in his throat and Dean froze as his brother broke.

"Please, Dean, I can't... can't lose you, not again... not like this... p-please c-come back... D-Dean..."

"Hey, hey," he said, gripping his hand tightly. "Sammy, I'm right here! I'm not going anywhere!"

Sam blinked slowly. His shaking lessened slightly. Encouraged, Dean rubbed his arm with his free hand.

"Okay? Okay, man? You're my brother, and I'll always be here to help you get through. Just try to calm down a bit, right? Take it easy."

"D-Dean?" Sam whimpered. He blinked again, harder this time. "Where..." His voice trailed off.

"We're in hospital," Dean explained gently. "Lusing helped you go skydiving off the church roof, remember? But you're gonna be okay. You've just got a little bit of a fever, that's all."

Sam's eyes flicked from side to side, still not seeming to see much. He took a few shallow breaths before speaking again.

"Are... are you... vampire?"

"What?" Dean raised his eyebrows. "Ah, no, Sammy, I'm not a vampire. Still same old Dean. Hey," he added, reaching up to cup Sam's neck as his brother's eyes continued to wander. "Hey, you see me?"

Sam's eyes slid down and finally focussed on Dean's face. He gazed at him for a few moments. Then a smile flickered across his face and his eyes closed, his grip on Dean's hand relaxing. Dean called his name softly but he didn't respond. He hesitated, unsure of what to do, but at that moment the door opened and Dr. Marshall appeared, a nurse in tow.

"You pressed the call button. Is everything okay?"

It took Sam at least three minutes to realize that he could see the blurry form of the ceiling through his eyelashes. He blinked, doing his best to drag his eyelids open and the image grew slightly clearer. He could hear a gentle, rythmic beeping from somewhere to his left and his own breathing rasping quietly in his ears. He ran his tongue over his cracked lips and with a huge effort rolled his heavy head to one side. Hospital room, hospital machines. He had a vauge memory of being spoken to at some earlier time, being spoken to by someone he knew. He tried to shift himself upright, but a sudden pain shot through his body and he froze, gasping.

"Sam?"

He twisted his head to the other side to see Dean standing beside a window on the other side of his bed. His brother made his way over to him, touching his arm. His voice was carefully soft and measured.

"Hey, man. You okay?"

"Yeah... my back hurts... and my head."

Dean relaxed, a grin darting across his face. He reached over and placed a hand on Sam's forehead. Sam swatted weakly at him with his one good arm - the other was fixed in a cast.

"Gerroff me."

"Sorry, man," Dean replied. "Just checking. You were, ah, pretty wacked out when you woke up yesterday. You had a fever, probably from infections. But the doc says you're gonna be fine. Just take a few weeks to get you back on your feet."

"Oh..." Sam frowned. He couldn't remember waking up previously, but the drifting, hesitant memories of that night on the church roof were still clear enough. He remembered the raw terror as Lusing had hurled him to the ground, the sudden, skull-splitting agony as he was slammed into the earth... he swallowed hard. "Opium? Vicky?" he asked. "And... Gordon?"

Even his name brought a shudder of fear. Dean's eyes flickered as he noticed, but he seemed to let it go.

"Opium and Vicky are fine. I called them this morning - they've spoken to Bobby and he's going to look for a safer place for them to live from now on. Gordon's gone."

"Gone where?"

"Gone away from us," Dean replied. "He saw you take the swan-dive and I think he thought you kicked it. Look, I know it won't be long until he finds out, but it'll be long enough for us to get out of this damned city and lose him."

"Okay," Sam said slowly. "So... So we should be back on the road soon."

He tried again to sit up but again froze, hissing with pain. Dean put a hand on his shoulder, holding him down, and reached for the bed control with the other.

"Stay still, bitch," he muttered.

He brought the top of the bed up into a slanted upright position, allowing Sam to sit up. Sam picked at the blanket, shutting his eyes until the pain had receeded.

"Jerk," he continued finally. "But I mean it. If Gordon's still out there then we need to get moving as soon as we can."

"I know," Dean said, "But we can buy you a couple of days here to get your strength back."

He paused, and then sat down in the chair beside Sam's bed. He rubbed a hand across his mouth. Sam knew him well enough to know that there was something Dean was about to say. Something that Sam wasn't going to like much.

"Sam... before, last time you woke up... well, do you remember anything?"

Sam shook his head. Dean bit his lip.

"You'd been having some sort of nightmare. A nightmare about Gordon, and me, too. And at the end you asked me if I was a vampire."

Sam's stomach plunged. He swallowed hard, forced a weak smile. "Just a hallucination from the fever."

"See, I'm not sure if I can believe that, Sammy," Dean said, leaning forwards. "Because you kept saying, I can't dream this anymore. Over and over."

Sam looked down at his lap, pressing his lips together. He should have known this moment would come eventually. And hadn't he been trying to make himself talk to someone about these god-damned nightmares? Maybe this was for the best...

"Sam."

Sam met his brother's gaze. He wet his lips.

"I've... I've been having these nightmares," he said softly. "For a few weeks now. They're so vivid, like visions, but they're not... they're different. Anyway, in my dream you're about to die, whether its the Impala about to run you over or a cliff crumbling around you or... or anything. And you... you're always..."

"I'm always what?" Dean asked as Sam hesitated.

"You're always a vampire, Dean."

Sam fixed his eyes on the wall so that he wouldn't have to see his brother's expression. Dean's silence said it all anyway.

"You keep telling me that you can live forever as a monster, and asking me why I haven't saved you yet and..." Sudden, uncontrollable tears forced themselves out of his eyes and flowed down his cheeks. Sam brushed at them furiously, but he couldn't control the terrible shaking in his voice as he spoke. "I try so hard, Dean, I swear. I'm trying to save you, but its not working. I'm doing my best, I am, and I'm prepared to do whatever it takes but I c-can't... these dreams are killing me..."

He shut his eyes tightly. God, Dean must think him such a wuss now. A weak, idiotic coward. No matter what he did, he was always the failure. He was always the dissapointment...

Strong arms suddenly closed around him, pulling him into a feirce embrace. He sucked in a small gasp of shock. Dean was... hugging him.

"Christ, Sammy, you're gonna be the death of me one of these days," Dean said in a voice that trembled. "You put way too much into this... its my god-damn deal, and we'll work it out together. But you can't keep doing this to yourself! You can't keep locking yourself up and hiding from me! How the hell are we supposed to be brothers if you do that?"

Sam gripped Dean back and then released him, nodding shakily. "I know," he said. "But I thought... I mean, what if the dreams are some sort of sign? If you don't die, you can't go to hell, right? And god, Dean, I'm prepared to try anything if it'll save you-"

"But I'm not." Dean sat back, shaking his head. "I'm not going to become a monster, Sam. I mean, how would it even work? Sure it would be great to be super fast, super strong, but with the bloodlust... Sam, it just wouldn't work. You know it wouldn't work."

"But..."

"Sammy." Dean looked him in the eye. "We'll get out of this deal. And we'll do it our way, without the monsters and the demons and the deals. We'll do it in a way in which no one else gets hurt. Either way, we will make it."

Sam looked at him for a moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.

Pretty much a fluff chapter! The next chapter will more or less be the last, mainly because I feel like this is a good place to round the story off. But if anyone wants anything else added, please do give me a heads up.

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