It was hard to not think of it as running away.

Sam walked aimlessly, taking somewhat remembered turns. Over the few days he'd been in the city, he'd become a little familiar with a few of the streets but overall, he didn't have much of a direction or destination planned.

As he walked, his racing mind kept returning to Dean and his behaviour. How could something like that have happened? Dean had barely made a cursory look into the room before he'd invited his female friend in.

Over the years, there had been sort of an unspoken rule. No women in their motel room. More so for the weapons and monster paraphernalia usually scattered around, than any thing else as it would be very easy to misunderstand but also because their motel room was kind of a sanctuary where they could fully be themselves without the lies that made up their everyday lives.

The only time he could remember any of them breaking that rule was when he'd lost his soul and Dean had been kidnapped by the fairies. Even then, asshole him only did it because he knew that Dean was not going to be there because of the whole kidnapped thing.

It was understood, or so he thought, that the room was a shared space and as a courtesy to the other, it would be treated with respect.

His phone went off in his pocket, the vibration unsettling against his skin.

DEAN, the screen said but he wasn't ready to talk to his brother yet, so he pressed the decline button and re-pocketed the phone.

Keeping his hands in his jacket pocket, he let his long legs take him where they wanted.

He walked for a while and eventually came upon an all night diner. Making a sudden decision, he detoured toward it.

A bell jingled overhead as he entered, causing the few patrons inside to briefly look up. He grabbed a seat close to one of the windows, frowning at the squeaky sound of the red leather and gave the plastic lamented menu a cursory look. His phone went off again.

Pulling it out, he scowled in annoyance as he saw Dean's name again. Clicking the decline button, he smiled up at the approaching waitress and ordered a black coffee.

He looked around more closely as he waited for his drink. It was a quaint, little spot. Familiar and nostalgic even though it was his first visit. Many of these businesses were disappearing across America to make way for the big chains like Biggerson's. It was a shame because they had a certain charm. He and Dean had practically grown up in an assortment of diners and motel rooms so it was sad to see pieces of his past slowly disappear.

Just as he received his order, a text message came in.

Dean
At least let me know you're alright and not dead somewhere. [2:16am]

He wavered slightly as he read the message a few times over. Sipping his coffee, he placed the phone on the table, face down. He was doing everything in his power to not think about earlier. It was best to wipe the memory from his mind.

Over the course of several minutes, the presence of his phone became the focal point of his attention. It felt like it had its own gravitational force. The more he tried to ignore it, the more conscious of it he was. Giving in, he picked it up and flicked back to Dean's message.

He started typing only to erase the message before turning off the screen and putting it down again.

An older man entered the cafe and started a conversation with his waitress. She seemed familiar with him as they laughed together.

Losing interest in the pair at the counter, his eyes went back to the phone, keeping it in sight as he drank his coffee. He truly did not know what to say so he didn't say anything for a long time. He just continued to drink his coffee.

Finally he came to a decision. He picked up the phone and quickly sent a message.

You
I'm fine. Be back soon. [2:32am]

He got a response almost immediately.

Dean
OK [2:32am]

He hadn't realized how tense his shoulders were until that message. The stiffness drained from his back and he relaxed considerably. At least they could still talk. He didn't know why it felt like there was so much space between them. Why it felt like simple things were now difficult if not impossible for them. It was like they weren't connected anymore.

Sam spent over two hours at the cafe drinking several cups of coffee. By the time he couldn't put off heading back anymore, he was literally vibrating with energy. Luckily he'd walked over two hours to get there so the extra energy would get him back to the motel.

He still had to pack his stuff so they could make the thirteen hour drive home. He was not looking forward to being trapped in the car with his brother for that long. Maybe this once he could just fly home and let Dean drive.

He dismissed the thought immediately. They'd gotten through worse things. In fact, he actually, now that he had had some time to calm down, really did want to talk to Dean. He wanted to know why Dean flinched away from him in that abandoned factory. He wanted to know why Dean needed to fall back on alcohol after a simple monster kidnapping. It certainly wasn't their first. He should have been able to bounce back from that easily enough.

He wanted to know why Dean violated their space so callously after never doing so in thirteen years. He wanted to know why Dean had blocked him out after they promised to talk to each other more...

These thoughts raced through his mind, bouncing around repeatedly and before he knew it he was back at the motel parking lot.

Dean was sort of lounging in the Impala eyes closed. Sam could see his bags, already packed, in the back seat alongside his brother's.

Entering the room, he double checked that everything was cleared and returned his key. He then climbed into the Impala, closing the door and waking Dean.

Dean looked at him for a moment and coming to some decision, started the car and drove off without saying a word.

Now that he was in the car, he did not know how to broach the topic. Would Dean shut him out again?

They hadn't been driving more than ten minutes when Dean started the conversation.

"We said we'd be more open with each other, so can we talk?"

Sam, who'd been watching the moving scenery while trying to come up with something to say, relaxed his posture and turned slightly to face his brother.

"I've been an asshole but I've just been trying to figure out what's what."

Frowning at that cryptic sentence, "what does that even mean?" he said slightly bewildered.

"I'm really sorry about earlier," making an embarrassed face. "That should not have happened."

"No kidding," Sam answered bluntly. "You barely checked to make sure the room was empty." Sam accused, voice filled with reproach. "Where else would I have been the night you almost died? Of course I was waiting for you to come back so we could fix whatever tension was between us."

Dean winced, gripping the steering wheel tightly but he didn't say anything.

"Do you know why I was in the bathroom?" Sam pushed on. "It hit me suddenly. You almost died. If not for two things happening at the right moment. You would have died! And I don't mean like in the past where death didn't have much weight because I could make some deal to bring you back or-or find a magical cure. You would have died last night if we didn't get there when we did. I only found a minor clue an hour before and I almost didn't find you on time. It hit me like a punch to the stomach and I basically had a panic attack. I told you Dean!" He said angrily. "I've been having dreams of you dying for weeks now. Weeks! And then you up and disappeared. I spent two sleepless nights looking for you! Without clues! Knowing time was running out." His hands were visibly shaking now. He saw Dean glance at them fleetingly.

"It's just from caffeine," he excused distractedly. "I haven't slept for a few nights because I couldn't rest knowing every second I wasted could be your last. Yet as soon as I find you, you pull away and do everything in your power to get away from me."

Through all this, Dean still didn't say anything.

"Over the last few days I've had a lot of time to think Dean. Why did I keep feeling that you were going to die? It was like this constant impending sense of doom, but about you. And you know what I realized? It's because I've seen you die hundreds of times. And every time you come back I feel this growing desperation to keep you alive. But you're reckless and you jump into dangerous situations carelessly and thoughtlessly.

"I admire your bravery and willingness to sacrifice. My fearless big brother Dean, but while you can't live without me, I can't live without you more. I've had to live without you for more time than I've been alive. And the time I spent with you I spent watching you die, kill yourself or trying to save you."

He saw the scrunched up look of confusion on Dean's face so he explained matter of factly.

"You sold your soul for me and I spent a year trying to save you and failed. Within that year I spent another year fighting the trickster as he killed you over and over again. And I am sure that he was actually killing you each time. I spent another four months while you were in help trying to save you. I spent centuries in hell being tortured by Lucifer with images of you dying horribly.

"I've watched you try or succeed in killing yourself deliberately so many times. When-when you thought that werewolf killed me. Remember? I asked you about that and you lied. When we were looking for those kids. That time I'm pretty sure you were actually gone. Luckily Billie brought you back. The Mark of Cain when Metatron killed you and the list goes on. So of course I'm having nightmares about you dying. I feel like I value your life more than you do. And I'm always fighting to save it." There he paused to take a breath, fully turning to face his brother.

"You fucked a stranger in our room. I thought we didn't do that. Yea, I got to know a little more about you than I wanted. I'll be embarrassed for a while but I'll get over it.

"The problem I have is the why behind your behaviour because Dean you're spiralling man and I need you to talk to me. Tell me what is going on."

Dean looked shamefaced in the silence after Sam's rant. "You're right and I'll never be able to tell you how sorry I am for what happened last night. All I can say is I wasn't in my right mind."

"You said something like that before," Sam said. "What does that mean?"

"I guess I should start at the beginning..."

Dean exited the Impala, he'd had to use the secondary visitor's parking because there weren't many free slots in the main and he wasn't going to get his baby scratched up trying to squeeze her into a tight spot.

Buttoning his jacket, he walked around the corner to the Emergency entrance.

"After making the hospital connection, I knew there had to be some thing they all had in common. I still had three flower witnesses so I tackled them but with focus on the hospital." He quickly glanced at Sam before eyeing the road again. Sam was listening.

"The first guy I visited basically belonged on Hoarders he kept everything he'd had from his wife, the victim. Including her doctor's form. Framed. Along with her clothing in their room exactly the same way she'd left it. I'm telling you. It was creepy. But it helped. Dr. Maria Holland.

"The second woman lost her daughter. She couldn't remember the doctor's name but she remembered a joke the doctor made every time they visited her. Something about a country in Europe. She thought it was strange that a Mexican had a last name of a European country. Her words. A bit racist, but it was the evidence I needed. I looked up the hospital's directory and found a Dr. Maria Holland on staff so I headed there right away. It made sense that she was the monster. Actually I was hoping I'd just kill her and get back in time to grab a few drinks and leave town.

He entered the cool building and walked to the desk that said Registration. There were two women and a man and he quickly made an assessment as to which one would be more helpful.

One of the women immediately stopped what she was doing and just stared at him as he approached.

Bingo, he thought before pasting on his best smile and reaching for his badge.

"Agent Plant, FBI," showing his badge, he said as an introduction before sticking it back in his jacket pocket. "I am looking for Dr. Holland." His smile became blinding in its wattage.

"Do you have an appointment?" The male, Brady his name tag said, asked.

"I... do not however -"

"Dr. Holland is one of our most requested doctors. It's hard to just see her without an appointment." Brady interrupted.

"No matter what I said, that nurse wouldn't budge. I should have known something was off about him. Luckily the other nurse was not as difficult. She happily sent me to the doctor's office. Apparently the doctor was free at that moment..."

"If you would like to make an appointment I'd be happy to schedule you in." Brady said determinedly. He was not going to budge, which Dean could respect. But he needed that information.

"Normally that would be true but five minutes wouldn't hurt," the nurse who been staring at him said.

"I only need 5 minutes," he agreed, leaning against the desk and winking at her in the way that always got him phone numbers. "you would be helping your country. I can sense that you're very patriotic," he said to her. What the hell did that even mean, he berated himself slightly.

"Of course agent. Anyway I can help." The way she said this was so dripping with innuendo that her other coworker coughed delicately in embarrassment and Brady pretended to not hear anything.

"I was on my way to the doctor's office but I saw her entering one of the patient's rooms on her floor. She was acting suspiciously, so I snuck into the room next door to see if I'd have a chance to take her out. I called you right before. I didn't want her to hear me. She was doing something to the patient. I was trying to get a better look while sending the texting. Next thing I knew I woke up tied to the ceiling in that abandoned factory."

Groaning, he came to with a pounding headache. Someone had hit him over the head.

"Son of a bitch," he grunted.

"Hello?" a tentative voice said somewhere to his right.

Swinging around as best he could, mainly struggling and flailing for a bit, he was finally able to turn his body. There as a young man, maybe early twenties, also hanging from the ceiling.

"Henry Mason?" he asked.

"Yeah? How do you know my name?"

"Actually I'm here to rescue you."

He saw the boy look at his bindings questioningly.

"There was a girl here before you. Somewhere behind me. I never saw her but she was always crying... until she stopped," this he said quietly. "I think she's dead and I'm sure they just left her there. I keep thinking there's a dead body behind me." His voice was filled with horror. "Please. Tell me you have a plan to get us out of here."

Truthfully he had no clue. "Working on it," he lied.

"The kid was scared and I didn't have a plan. You didn't know where I was and I didn't know how I was gonna get out so all I could do was bluff and hope you could find me."

"Whatever your plan is, we gotta hurry. They'll be back soon."

"I'm working on it," he said this time with less optimism as he tried to yank on his bindings unsuccessfully.

"You don't have a plan do you," he said hopelessy.

"Working on it," he promised, trying his best to get free.

"Well well if it isn't mister big bad Hunter." A woman's voice said just before Dr. Holland entered the room, Brady right behind her.

'Shit,' he thought. He was out of luck lately. 'Well time to bluff my way through this and hope I can buy some time for Sam to find me.'

"You came all this way for me?" he said with a smirk. "You shouldn't have."

"But you're the guest of honour. Yantho will feast for days on you."

"What the hell lady. Only douchebags refer to themselves in third person."

"Oh, how precious. You think I'm Yantho?" she laughed sinisterly and pointed to a corner almost out of his eye shot. "He is Yantho."

Clearly she was crazy. There was no one there. He told her as much.

"But you're wrong. He has been here with you the entire time." The malicious glee made her pretty face warp into something evil and cruel.

The corner of the room she pointed to, a mangled pile of rot, junk and metal, slowly slithered and twisted, uncoiling and stretching itself into a human-like form. The entire motion was filled with awful and wrong.

If Dean didn't make it his job to search out monsters, the slowly approaching creature would have scared him shitless. As it were, Henry was making these horrible crying sounds the closer the monster got.

"So what are you then? A groupie?" he said with fake calm, all the while side eyeing the lurching creature.

She huffed in annoyance and offence. "In my day, I was Yantho's most loyal priestess," she stated with a flourish. "I made sure he always had his tributes and as thanks, he granted me immortality."

"What about Beiber over there?" He asked

"A new generation of priests." She dismissed before giving him a thoughtful look. "I know what you're doing. You're trying to get me to tell you our plan. Well it won't matter because you won't be leaving here alive."

"I've gotten out of worse," he tried to communicate a careless shrug, unsuccessfully through his restraints.

"Not this time you won't. Yantho will feed on you until you're filled with despair and loathing." There was this underlying base in her tone, just almost out of hearing range. It was a tone no human vocal cord could pitch.

"Too late then. I'm already there. You might as well let me and the kid go."

"Keep joking, My master is hungry."

In the corner the silent figure of Yantho lumbered closer.

"The monster kind of acted like a djinn. It threw me into this fake dream world so seamlessly. I didn't even see it get near me. All I saw was that as the monster was coming towards me, you burst into the room and killed them all. You rescued us both and called the cops.

I didn't realize it wasn't real for days while in that fake world. At first dream-you got annoyed at all kinds of little things. I didn't think much of it. You're always a princess and I'm used to it. But it kept getting worse. Like everything I did would upset or anger you. We were constantly arguing until one day it turned physical.

You attacked me and we went our separate ways. I "woke up" tied in the factory after dream-you left and it started again with you rescuing me. That is when I started to realize that something was wrong. But I couldn't get out and it kept happening. In each cycle dream-you kept getting angrier and angrier with me. The last dream cycle before I woke up for real in that factory, you were choking me," Sam made a soft sound at that.

"I'm sure I was going to die in the real world with you killing me in the dream. When I first woke up, I thought it was just another cycle. They always started the same way. With you rescuing me and I'd had enough. I didn't want to play his game anymore."

"How do you know you're not still dreaming then?" Sam challenged. He was especially familiar with waking hallucinations and how real they could feel.

"You know how a dream feels so real when you're in it but when you wake up you start wondering how you thought it made sense? Well he couldn't get you right. I mean at all. And your face when you left that bathroom, let's just say dream Sam could never look at me like that."

Sam stiffened at the reminder.

"I can't say I'm sorry enough..." Dean trailed off sadly.

"It's just sex. I just never wanted to hear you in the act." After clearing the air, Sam suddenly wasn't as embarrassed about the whole thing anymore. In fact it felt like he had an opportunity to rib his brother.

"I always knew you were a control freak,"

Dean's surprise laugh forced one out of him.

"Shut up," Dean teased, shoving him a little with one hand while maintaining control of the car.

The sleepless nights had finally caught up to him and Sam kept dozing off during the drive but he couldn't seem to sink into a deep sleep no matter how hard he tried. Something would startle him awake or the ride would be too bumpy.

By the time they made it home, he was so ready to drop off. He could feel the weariness in his bones.

Emptying out the Impala took the longest time. They always cleared things out as soon as they got home because Dean did not like clutter in his car if it didn't have to be there but he was just dragging his feet. He stubbornly refused to let Dean do it all. He'd already cleared out the motel. Sam couldn't leave him with all of this as well.

After several hours of tossing and turning in his bed, he groaned loudly in annoyance. It's like he forgot how to sleep.

Finally giving up, he went to his drawer for the really good painkillers. It would numb some of the residual aches from being slammed against the wall but more importantly it would make him sleep. He didn't have dreams when he took them so they were a safe bet for getting some rest. The problem was that they were addicting and he didn't want to go down that road again. But, he reasoned, once in a while couldn't hurt.

Swaying on his feet with exhaustion, he made a rapid decision and downed double the recommended dose. Just to make sure.

He climbed tiredly into his bed and sighed into the firm pillow. His limbs felt like they were being held down by weights.

Slowly, his eyelids started to drop. He fell asleep with a sense of relief.

He could hear a wounded sound echoing around him.

"Sam! Wake up!"

"Dean?" his voice overflowing with relief. Before he could think about it, he reached out to touch his brother's face.

"You're alright," he sounded surprised even to his own ears.

Slowly his awareness of his surroundings solidified and he came to his senses.

"What's going on?" he asked, sitting up in the bed.

"You were having a nightmare. I could hear you all the way in my room." Dean sat at the edge of the bed. "Are you alright?" The shaft of light emanating from the hallway cast harsh shadows, emphasizing his brother's features and highlighting his concern starkly.

"I'm fine. Sorry. I'm fine," he said again. "It was just a dream. You can go back to bed. Sorry to wake you."

"You're sure you're okay?" Dean asked, not even a little convinced.

Nodding, "I'm fine." He wanted Dean to leave before he could see how badly he was shaking as residual memories resurfaced.

Turning away from his brother he lay back in the bed. He heard a soft but doubtful "okay," before Dean's retreating steps took him to the door.

The hallway light quickly disappeared with a soft click of the closed door. He tooth a deep trembling breath only to tense when he heard in the darkness, "Liar."

'Dean?" he asked the void.

"Scoot over," Dean answered before lifting the covers and climbing into the bed. Sam said nothing and made room, too surprised. He stared over his shoulder into the darkness at the silhouette of his brother as he made himself comfortable in Sam's bed.

Lying back down, heart fluttering against his chest, Sam stared widely into the shadows.

"I thought we promised to tell each other the truth Sam," he said settling under the covers, his back to Sam's.

Sam didn't know what to say to that. How was he supposed to explain this?

"You never have to hide from me. Not about anything," Dean said vehemently.

"I know," he whispered in the dark.

After a while, Dean asked softly, encouragingly, "want to tell me about it?"

"I didn't get there in time to save you," Sam said on a rushed breath. "No matter how many times Manuel performed CPR you just w-wouldn't wake up," his voice cracked reliving the dream.

"You did save me Sammy. I'm right here." He pressed his back to Sam's so he could feel his real solidness. "You got there in time."

Sam's shiver shook the entire bed. "Now sleep. I'm not going anywhere. I promise."

A/N - Please leave a like or comment to let me know what you thought of the chapter. Thank you!