The credit for Beta work once again goes to Ninjakittee. Whoever sees this should go read her stuff now! You won't regret it, promise ;)

There was nothing he could do. They were done for. The gaping black hole grew wider and wider as he struggled to hold onto his brother's hand. A violent wind forcefully threw its tantrum around them, roaring down into the howling abyss. Blowing them slowly to their doom. Even in full knowledge of the hopeless situation he was in, he still desperately clung to that hand, willing himself to not let go no matter what. But it was in vain. He could not prevent his brother's fingers from slipping out of his grasp, regardless of how hard he tried.

In a fit of utter despair he opened his mouth to scream his name, but no sound came out. As if the howling wind was keeping his panicked sobs locked within his throat, choking him with the truth of his own failure. His failure to keep him safe.

And then suddenly the scenery changed. They were both swallowed entirely by the abyss, that dark and grim chaos of thunder and lightning and greenish light. He looked around himself, terrified to the bone. He knew this place, knew it only too well. His eyes darted around to make out the endless rows of chains and racks, the mere memory of all the endured pain making his limbs fire up in agony. Most of the victims were clouded from his vision, their forms shady and out of focus. All but one. Strapped to one of the racks in his close vicinity, he could see the writhing, distorted figure of his little brother, his tormented screams piercing him to the bone. The victim's bloody face turned upward to look at his tormentor in a desperate plea, those big, beautiful and pained eyes begging him pitifully to stop. However the dark figure just laughed like the cruel creature he was. Lucifer.

His heart raging with pain and anger and hatred and all the protectiveness that he had felt all his life, he approached the figure, wanting nothing more than to rip him into a thousand pieces for doing this to his brother. When he was but moments away from lashing out, the tormentor turned to face him.

He froze dead in his tracks at the sight before him, the enormous shock preventing him from all further movement. For the creature standing before him was not the devil.

He was looking into the black-eyed mirror of his own face.

. . .

Dean woke from his dream with a startled jolt, his head forcefully shooting up a few inches from his pillow. He panted for air while letting himself drop back into the soft down, raising his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead. It took him a moment to remember where he was, but his mind caught up quickly at the feel of a warm hand gliding over his chest and pulling him into a loving embrace.

"Shh, it's ok…" Lisa whispered in his ear, moving closer to him under the covers. "You're ok, Dean, it was just a dream…"

As she placed a tender kiss on his cheek, he let out a big sigh, releasing all the tension from his body and turned over on his side to face her.

"It wasn't real," she murmured, leaning her forehead against his and drawing soothing circles on his back. "Just a dream…"

Dean closed his eyes and tried to let himself be comforted by her words, even if only temporarily. It had just been a dream. He wasn't in Hell. He wasn't torturing people. He was here with her. None of it was real.

Only that wasn't entirely true. At least part of it was real, as he painfully had to admit to himself. He worked hard to keep his face composed as the images he was trying to repress threatened to crush his chest and seal it off from all possibility of breathing. He tried to keep himself calm for her sake. Too many nights upon his arrival in her home had been spent by the kind woman trying helplessly to bring him back from his state of near catatonia. Too many times had he woken her with his desperate thrashing. Although he knew she wanted to help him, he couldn't bear the fact that he was causing her pain. She didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve her.

And yet she was here. A warm body in his arms, her soft skin brushing his, her wonderful scent offering nothing but comfort. She was the rock that he was clinging to, the light that was somehow holding the broken and bruised pieces of his soul together. He would even have said that she was his angel sent from heaven, he thought sarcastically, if he hadn't had his fill for eternity of all those flying ass monkeys. He was holding onto her for dear life. Life he wasn't even sure he wanted.

But he'd made a promise.

While they both lay quietly in each other's arms, the sky outside the window slowly lit up with the arrival of dawn. Dean wasn't sure if he had nodded off again or if time just passed really quickly, but within a short while it was time to get up. Another day, another dawn.

The morning started off with their usual everyday routine. Lisa roused Ben for school and Dean helped her make breakfast for the kid, finding his way around her kitchen better with each passing day. The boy then sat silently, shoveling the scrambled eggs into his mouth, his eyes mostly trailing his busy mother while occasionally stealing a shy glance at Dean. Since he had been living with them for almost two weeks now, Ben wasn't nearly as wary of the older man as he had been in the beginning, but he still seemed slightly cautious. And who could blame the poor kid, Dean thought grimly to himself. A weird, messed up man that he had met briefly a million years ago one day just decided to show up and move in with him and his mom? Yeah, he could imagine how that would be slightly disorienting. Quite frankly, he was surprised the kid wasn't more dismissive of him, cause right about now he himself would've seriously considered kicking his own ass if he were in Ben's position.

As he caught the boy shooting him another hidden glance, Dean cleared his throat and tried putting on a casual, relaxed expression. Cheerful was too much to ask.

"You good?" he asked, nodding his head toward Ben's plate. "Want some more toast?"

Ben shook his head and turned his gaze back down to his eggs. Well, it looked like he was getting the silent treatment.

Meanwhile he noticed Lisa bustling around the kitchen in more agitation than she usually displayed in the morning. She was slicing open several of her letters with a letter opener while pacing back and forth between the table and the kitchen counter to take notes on a little notepad. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, her silky brown locks slightly dancing around her from her restless movement.

"You look like you could use some help," Dean remarked, quirking his typical smile at her.

Lisa raised her head up from the letters and smiled in return. "No, that's all right, thanks," she said, affection briefly lingering in her eyes before she returned her focus to her chores. Dean caught Ben glancing back and forth between him and his mother once more. He barely had time to feel guilty before Lisa spoke up again, her voice urgent and distracted by one of the letters she was eying.

"Hurry and finish up, sweetie," she said to Ben, her tone slightly stressful. "I've got some bills to pay before my ten o'clock, so we should get going…"

Seeing her son speed up his eating process in obedience and highly aware of her busy schedule, Dean was struck by a sudden flash of insight.

"You know, I can drive him if you're busy," he offered shyly. This earned him a surprised look from Lisa and a wary look from Ben, but he managed to uphold his mask of composure, even if he was in fact very nervous on the inside. "If that's ok with you." He added with a quick glance to Ben.

The boy shrugged. "Sure, why not?" He shoved the last few bites of his breakfast into his mouth and got up to go get his school bag. Dean slowly strode over to take the keys from the counter next to Lisa and stopped when she briefly laid her hand on his. "Thanks," she said and showed him a genuine smile, which he reciprocated if only faintly. "No problem."

The moment he sat in Lisa's car he felt weird. This was the first time since he had moved in that he and Ben would be spending longer than a few seconds alone together and he found that he had no idea what to say to the boy. On top of that he couldn't deny that the family car was making him feel very disconcerted, as he backed the huge thing out of the garage and onto the peaceful, suburban street. There was something extremely off about not driving baby, plus the fucking thing was a monster! It wasn't the first time he was driving it, but he still didn't like it. It was like a huge joke at his expense. Knowing how there had once been nothing that made him feel more at home than sitting behind the wheel.

The first few minutes passed in silence as they drove along the quiet street, the colorful autumn trees passing by from time to time. Their leaves had already begun to fall. Dean shot several glances over at Ben, who sat nearly immobilized in the passenger's seat, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. The hunter opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to find something to say.

"So… school," he finally said, making his voice sound as cheerful as possible. This caused no reaction in Ben whatsoever. Great, so it looked like he would probably make a frickin' fool of himself trying to get a single word out of the kid. "What kinda classes you got?"

Ben shrugged. Well, at least he was no longer a statue. "You know, the usual." Dean kept a casual smile on his lips while waiting for the boy to tell him more but nothing came. It took him a lot of effort to not sound exasperated when he tried to carry the conversation further.

"Like what?"

This earned him a slightly skeptical gaze from Ben, as if he was trying to assert Dean's intentions. "Like History and English and Chem class." He then said in a slightly bored tone.

Dean chuckled in reminiscence. "Hmm, Chem class." He nodded in understanding and grinned at the road.

Ben huffed in annoyance next to him. With a slight frown Dean turned to face him. "You don't like it?" He wanted to know. Ben snorted.

"Why, you do?" He fixed an incredulous stare at the hunter, his interest now obviously spiked.

Dean kept his eyes on the road, but he still glanced at him from time to time, trying to bring his point across. "Well, they fix you up in pairs, right?" He explained, taking a turn out of the suburban housing area and onto the main road as he waited for Ben to catch on.

"Yeah, so?" He wanted to know, his brow now furrowed in confusion.

"So…" Dean went on, shooting Ben a smirk. "If you're lucky, you get paired up with a cute girl."

He cocked an eyebrow at the kid and his spirits heightened instantly as he saw Ben smiling for the first time that morning.

During the rest of the drive Dean felt that the boy was slightly warming up to him, telling him about his boring, uptight chemistry teacher, who always taught her classes in extremely stilted language and apparently no sense of humor, therefore awakening the suspicion of having had a giant broom shoved up her ass sometime in the past. Dean listened in silent amusement as Ben laughed about her. As if he didn't know that from somewhere. When he finally pulled over to the side of the road in front of the lively school building, he felt a hundred times more relaxed then upon first getting in the car.

Ben hesitated for a moment, picking up his backpack from the floor, obviously not sure what to say. "Thanks," he offered quickly before opening the door and hopping out onto the sidewalk. "Hey," Dean said, drawing the boy's gaze back on him as he waited to close the door. "Have fun!"

The encouraging smirk he displayed next to the words made the corner of Ben's mouth quickly twitch up into a half smile, before he nodded and slammed the door shut. Dean's smile was replaced with a soft line of thought stretching across his forehead, as he watched the boy walk up the front steps of the building and disappear into the school. He couldn't help but remember the last time he had brought a kid of Ben's age to school in the morning. Usually a new one every few weeks. He remembered how much Sammy had hated that. How bad he had felt about not being able to give his little brother the normal life that he wanted. It now seemed like a lifetime ago. Almost like another world. A world where his brother had been safely tucked away inside something as normal as school instead of…

No, he stubbornly told himself while restarting the engine. He was not going there. He was not going to risk crashing Lisa's car in a sudden fit of despair. He could already feel the tightening sensation closing in around his chest, the same pressure threatening to crush and strangle him until there was nothing left. Careful to keep the car steady on its track, Dean breathed deeply as if trying to reassure himself that he still had room for his lungs, that there was nothing confining him. He tried keeping his thoughts on Lisa, pleased with himself that he had managed to help her with some of the stress that she was in today. For all the pain he was causing her at night, he might as well try to be useful during the day.

When he arrived back at Lisa's house he found the kitchen and the living room empty. He guessed Lisa was probably at the computer, taking care of the bills she had mentioned before. Dropping the keys back on the counter, Dean slowly stepped into the perfectly clean kitchen and headed for the fridge. He hesitated for a moment after opening the door, staring pensively down at the half empty case of beer that had seemed to almost scream out to him from the moment he had stepped through the front door. The damn suckers were tempting him! It wasn't even nine in the morning for God's sake and he was living with a frickin' eleven year old! Oh yeah, he was gonna be one awesome role model.

However after a few moments of having a staring contest with the beer, Dean finally gave in and grabbed one. He sighed heavily while popping off the lid and striding over into the living room. Maybe it wasn't a good idea but he needed this now. After following the habit of drowning his worries in alcohol for almost all his grown-up life and even before, it was kind of impossible to just stop in such a short period of time. Well, at least it wasn't whisky or anything. That had to count for something.

Dean paused his pacing in front of the window and raised the bottle to his lips to swallow a giant mouthful of beer while looking out into the yard. The cool, alcoholic liquid was soothing for his restless senses. As he looked out onto the green lawn covered by fallen leaves, his mind wandered back to the conversation that he and Ben had shared in the car. It was the first bit of meaningful dialogue between the two of them since he had suddenly showed up on their doorstep two weeks ago, lost, broken and alone. He still couldn't explain to himself how Lisa had readily taken him in with open arms, as messed up as he had been. As he still was. But she had and for that he would be forever grateful. And Ben… damn it, if he wasn't fond of that kid. He had been so from the very first moment upon meeting him a few years ago, even at the terrifying possibility of being his father. But all that affection only served to increase his doubts further. He worried about him. He didn't want the poor little guy to feel uncomfortable in his own home, didn't want him to think that Dean was intruding into his quiet life with his mom.

"Hey," Lisa's soft voice pulled him from his thoughts a short while later. He turned around to see her standing on the other side of the room, her eyes warm and welcoming. There was no point in hiding the beer. She had already seen it and even if she hadn't, she probably could have guessed. So Dean just awkwardly looked down at the bottle and then back at her, hoping that she wouldn't condemn him for it. She merely smiled, only a hint of sadness briefly shadowing her face before she crossed the room to stand beside him.

"Thanks for driving him," she said. Dean gave a quick shrug to show that it wasn't a problem and set the offending bottle down on the windowsill behind him. "How did it go?" She asked cautiously.

"Ok, I guess," he responded, recalling the conversation between himself and Ben once more. "I mean, he seemed fine."

He contemplated her patient face for a moment before deciding to share his concern. She was the kid's mother after all. "How… how do you think he's doing?" He didn't say anything to specify what he was talking about, but he knew he didn't need to. She understood him perfectly.

"He's fine," Lisa said without hesitating. "He needs some time to adjust of course, but…" Her eyes trailed slowly over his face and she couldn't help but smile upon uttering her next words. "I'm finding it hard to see a down side in this."

Dean was not exactly sure how to react to this. Already he could feel the waves of guilt washing over him from those words that had meant to cause the complete opposite of what they were actually inducing. More than anything he wished he could see it the way she did. That this was somehow a new beginning, a benefit to all of them. But of course all he could see was nothing but a down side.

"What is it?" She asked softly, her smile faltering into a worried expression as she took a step closer to him, one hand reaching up to touch his face. Dean looked down, unable to meet her eyes. But the touch of her hand felt so warm, so comforting that he couldn't stop himself from leaning into it if only slightly.

"Look, I don't know if you've noticed…" He said after a while, lifting his head back up to meet her gaze. "But I'm a wreck." He couldn't help showing a hint of a humorless smile. It was all he had been for years now. "And I don't wanna put that on anyone. Especially not Ben…"

Lisa instantly took another step toward him, dropping her hand to grip his tightly, an earnest expression on her face. "You think that's what you're doing?" She responded, incredulity obvious in her voice. "Dean, you've been nothing but good to him since the moment you arrived here!"

Seeing that he was about to argue, she raised her finger to silence him. "Look… I can't pretend to know what you went through. What you're still going through… I know some bad things happened to you out there. And I know that doesn't exactly leave you in the mood for a happily ever after. But, Dean, that's ok!" She clasped his hand tightly while looking into his eyes, almost willing him to understand. "I don't expect you to just be fine. It's ok for you to grieve."

At this point Dean started turning his head to look away, refusing to think about Sam at the moment, but Lisa put her hand against his face once more to stop him. When she spoke again, her voice was barely a fleeting whisper, but for all its stillness lacked nothing in determination. "We'll get through this."

As if to undermine her declaration, she took one more step forward and put her arms around him. Dean slowly reciprocated the embrace and looked down on her head, which she was now resting against his chest. There were so many things he wanted to say to her, so much gratitude that needed to be conveyed. He wanted to tell her how much this meant to him, how undeserving and thankful he was for all her care. But he had never been good at finding the right words for stuff like this. So instead, he simply lowered his lips to her hair, pressing a tentative kiss to the top of her head before resting his cheek there. It was more than he could ever bring across with a few stupid, meaningless words.

The two of them remained like that for a few moments, Dean's eyes still trailing the fall of the leaves outside the living room window. A soothing tranquility settled within the room, disturbed by nothing but the distant chatter of a few kids playing happily outside. After a short while Lisa slowly pulled her head away from his chest to look up into his eyes.

"And Ben?" She started with a smile. "I don't think you realize what a big impression you made on him."

Dean's brow furrowed in slight confusion. "What do you mean?" After all he had only been here for two weeks, so he didn't know what type of impression he could've made on the kid.

Lisa shook her head in amusement at his ignorance. "Three years ago?" She said chuckling. "A cool guy walks into his birthday party, all leather jacket and rock-star looking, then helps him with some bullies and saves his life?" Her eyes glinted, while her voice took on a slightly teasing note. "That kinda stuff makes quite a big impression on a kid."

Taking in her good-humored expression in surprise, Dean couldn't help feeling a certain amount of pride stirring deep within him, buried beneath all the self-hatred. "Really, I did?" He responded with a small grin appearing on his face.

Lisa laughed while withdrawing her arms from around him and taking his hands into hers instead. "Of course you did! He couldn't stop talking about you for weeks. He's never had a guy to look up to before, you know? He idolized you."

And with just those few words the feeling of pride had left him as quickly as it had come. Idolized. He was the last guy in the world Ben should be idolizing. Especially after what had happened to the last kid that had ever looked up to him.

Nope, not going there.

He felt his smile faltering on his face, but thankfully Lisa didn't seem to notice since she was smiling down at their linked hands, squeezing his tightly. "He's gonna be ok." She reassured him confidently. "You both are."

Dean found himself extremely grateful that she had to leave a few moments later in order to make her ten o'clock. That way he could keep to his dark cloud of despair on his own for now and not pull her into it. He quickly decided that wandering aimlessly around the house just wasn't going to cut it; he needed distraction.

So he once again found himself venturing out into the garden, trying to find something to do around the house that would keep him busy. The time was not ideal for mowing the lawn, seeing how it was covered in a thick of autumn leaves, but this did leave him with another option. After finding what he needed in the small tool shed, he got to work in raking the leaves.

The rhythmic strokes worked wonders to calm down his warped mind. But after a few minutes, Dean had to realize that this would not be able to keep him from thinking. This could not distract him, nothing could. He could only not go there for so long.

In the end everything he was doing here was lie. He could wake up next to Lisa and have her tell him that he was safe, that he was only having nightmares. He could make breakfast and drive Ben to school and try to fit into Lisa's home like some kind of a family man. But none of that meant anything, because in his mind, he could never escape from that dark precipice that was haunting him each and every night.

The dark hole that had swallowed Sammy, violently ripping him from this world forever.

Just thinking about it now, he could feel his chest being crushed again, that petrifying confining feeling steadily closing in on him. He forced himself to take deep breaths. The raking helped.

It had been nearly unbearable at first. His own nightmares of hell mixing in with all the horrible things that must be happening to Sam right now… They had been quite a common phenomenon ever since the night it happened. Messed up didn't even begin to cover it. He had been frickin' destroyed those first few days after. He still was. He wasn't even sure how he was breathing right now. Because saying that it had been unbearable at first… It would be a complete and utter lie to say that it had gotten any better. He was no more stable now than he had been two weeks ago. Hell, it hadn't even gotten scarcely bearable. If anything… He was just being. Going on. Hanging by the last possible thread still in existence that kept him from straight on going insane.

There were moments of course when he did fear that he was going crazy. They consisted usually in an episode of his desperate, manic need to try to bring Sam back, regardless of the fact that he had promised not to do so. Twice he had left the house in the middle of the night, driving to faraway places and collecting whatever books he could find on dark magic and gateways to hell. Hours he had spent researching the web, casually downing entire bottles of whiskey glass after glass during the process. Although he knew that Lisa knew perfectly well what was going on with him, he never told her about it and she never asked. They were short-lived episodes after all, mostly passing within a few hours and always ending with the grim and hopeless realization that he neither should nor would ever succeed. And then he would plunge into the depths of grief once more.

The only thing that kept bringing him back again, was that last possible thread existing solely in the promise that had been his brother's dying wish. It was the only reason he was still breathing. Knowing that Sammy had wanted him to go on, to try to live some kind of apple-pie life. And he would try. God help him, but he would try.

Even though he was only barely scraping by, he couldn't deny that he would probably be in a lot worse condition if it weren't for Lisa. He cared for her and Ben the way he hardly had for anybody else in his life besides Sammy. As messed up and loaded with crap as he was, the two of them almost seemed like the only light in his entire world of crushing, black darkness. Perhaps even something slightly representing… Hope.

He knew that he was not gonna be all right. He was never gonna be all right. But as long as the two of them existed… he knew he could at least keep going on. That had to count for something.

Time passed swiftly while he was raking, lost in thought, working his way through the yard, bundling up piles of the leaves as he went. A soft breeze danced around him, blowing at some of the leaves still waiting for him. The sound of the wind around him blended well with the quiet nature of the place, normally presenting a perfect disguise to the faint fluttering behind him.

But not to him. Not to him.

Perhaps it was more instinct than his hearing sense, but there was nothing in the world that could keep that flutter from him. Dean froze in the middle of his raking motions, his heart pounding fiercely in his chest. He'd recognize that sound anywhere. The soft, almost peaceful breath of air that could be called forth by only one being in existence.

The flutter of wings.

Dean slowly turned around, his eyes growing wide in surprise and utter speechlessness at the sight before him. His gaze swiftly wandered over the traits so familiar to him; the beige trench coat, the friggin' messed up tie that he managed to always wear backwards. The dark, mussed up hair standing in such sharp contrast to the brilliant blue eyes that quietly rested on him.

A feeling of great unease started spreading within the hunter as he looked into the angel's face. Anyone else would have been blind to any form of emotion on the stoic being's face, but knowing him as well as Dean did, he instantly noticed the almost barely visible shadow of sadness in his expression, followed by the unusually grave sentiment, which lay within his blue eyes.

His deep and gravelly voice aggrieved with the weight of the world, Castiel finally opened his mouth to speak.

"Hello, Dean."