Part 2.

The silence in the bunker is eery. Closes in on Dean as he stumbles down the halls, closes in the thoughts he so desperately wants to let out and get rid of permanently. High pitched noises kick in and out popping his ears making his stomach drop and roll with nausea. Violent shivers shake his frame and he really can't understand why on earth he can't stop them. "Get control of yourself, Dean." He grits out through chattering teeth.

Why he finds himself at her bedroom door he doesn't know. Why does he torture himself? It's almost with a compelled hand that he swings the door opened. Even after only a few days her scent wafts out to him, he smiles sadly at the unmade bed. Sheets, blankets and clean towels folded on the end of it.

A pretty big message stamped there. Going. Gone.

He sighs, shudderingly taking a step into the room fingers ghosting over the fold materials. The room looks the same as it did before she moved in here. She was well and truly gone, leaving nothing behind for her sons except the phantom feeling of her embrace and the evasive smell of "her".

Mary had literally disappeared out of their lives they way they did from those they met along the way in their cases. She left them with not a trace with an ease that angered Dean, she even took John's journal with her.

Before Dean could stop himself he kicks the legs out from under the chair sitting at the desk and punches a fisted hand against the wall. Grounding, satisfying pain rips up his knuckles as the chair's legs merely give out, splinters of wood scattering across the floor.

The cold burning pain in his chest intensifies with the violent outburst reminding him all to well of the Mark of Cain. Grasping at the point of pain in his chest with his hand anger gives away to grief, after all he can't really be angry with her. The sadness of her departure has marred the safety of their home for the time being.

Their home.

Not mom's home.

Not enough for her, couldn't keep her here, couldn't make her stay. Couldn't make her happy...couldn't make her forget. Doubts and regrets and insecurities flood into his mind, constricting his aching heart even further. He turns away from the scene of his violent outburst and slumps down on the edge of the bed looking down at his hands.

"Was it something I did?" He asks out loud, as if the room can speak for his absent parent. Another parent who had left him, another parent who he hadn't been able to keep. Expected silence answers him, "Something I didn't do?" He adds with a self-depreciating laugh through shivers.

"Mom..." he's cut off as searing cold pain rips through his senses, aches slicing through his body. Eyes blur for a moment, when he can breathe again they are wet with tears. His chest is cold and burning with agony under his hand. He jerks his palm away from his body, it breaks away with a sickening crack. He looks down at his hand in awe, a thin layer of ice shines on his skin.

"What the...?" He mutters under his breath, he stands and makes his way over to the mirror, pulling the layers of clothes back. There over his heart a thick section of ice has formed under his jacket. The middle glows a wicked blue pulsing with each beat of his heart. There beside his own face in the reflection of the mirror is a dimly familiar ashen gray face with a wicked smile on its lips.

Moriarty.

Dean grits his teeth and clenches his hands against the onslaught of torturous icy agony coursing through his body as their eyes meet, he fights for consciousness and control.

"Sa...!"

...

His surroundings are somewhat familiar. The room is old, walls of worn, eaten away wood. Boarded up windows, flickering and changing to dirty curtained panes. He's off balance, the room rocking, with each turn it's changing appearance a little. The sound is wacky, his ears popping and sound filtering in between a high pitched white noise.

Images are fading in and out somewhat like spirits, Sam can't make out much. A table and a fireplace appear and disappear alternately. There is one image slowly becoming more and more vivid that he recognizes with an anxious lurch in his stomach.

Dean's figure fills in against the wall, his feet are a few inches from the floor, he's pinned there by some invisible force. Blood oozes dark red down his chest from wounds that Sam remembers all too well. The ones inflicted on him by Azazel while he's possessed John's body. He tenses to shoot forward automatically, to help his sibling, to stop this repeat.

He finds he can't move like he's stuck, watching from his place on the floor. A shadow he couldn't identify before suddenly makes sense as the dark silhouette turns and John's face comes into view with yellow, glowing eyes. He finds himself fighting and thrashing helplessly as John's fingers insert deeper and deeper into Dean's chest as his brother wails in agony.

He collapses gasping and sobbing against the wall as Dean goes still.

The familiar picture fades to something he also recognizes, something that happened only a few hours ago. The fireplace and boarded up windows come into view and stabilize. Dean is still against the wall, but now a glowing orb of light approaches his brother. He's not afraid until Dean's eyes go wide and the light takes on a little shape and the glow grows a cold blue in the middle of it.

He watches as their mom reaches forward slowly and deliberately to place fingertips in the same place their father had. Watches as once again Dean grits his teeth and groans in agony, as forces of evil use their only family to torture him. Around him the air is taunt with electricity and it becomes absolutely freezing cold. Thunder echoes outside, the house begins to shake.

Sam is fighting his invisible bonds, yelling at Mary to stop, crying for Dean to hold on. He watches in horror as icy shards form on his brother's chest, a cold blue in the middle. Right over his heart. He watches with his heart in his throat and tears frozen on his cheeks as the skin of Dean's throat goes white and firm, ice spreading through his veins and making him stone cold and silent. He watches blue lines appear in Dean's face, as his lips lose color and go purple.

Beautiful emerald eyes stay as bright as ever. But Sam knows better than anyone when they are void, when life has left his brother's lungs, and Dean, his brother, has left him. He's pressing forward as hard as he can to break free as sparkling edges of ice form on the tips of his brother's hair.

He's begging, pleading as John's image flickers into existence beside Mary's.

"Dad," he breathes out, for some reason feeling relieved, "Mom..." he turns to her. Hope and sorrow mixed in his voice. "Help him." He pleads, "Please...help him." He cries, as breaths become sobs, sobs, shuddering gasps as their beloved faces begin to fade.

"No!" He screams helplessly. Trying to tear from his bonds, arms and legs fighting for all his worth. "Help me! Help us!"

With that last fading shades of their parents the forces holding Sam back disappear. He lands with a thump across the room as Dean's cold body slumps forward from the wall and falls into Sam's waiting arms. So cold. So still.

Already gone.

"No, no, no," Sam sobs out. Arms circle his brother, bringing Dean into his warmth. Eyes are glassy and emotionless, Dean can't comfort his little brother now. Sam buries his face in Dean's still, cold neck as he holds him close as if he can reverse anything done to his big brother.

"De..." he pleads, (pleasecomebacktomepleasedontleavemedeanineedyou...notagain)

There is no answer. No miraculous breath, no reassuring smile. No cocky smirk, or snarky limerick. Just silence answering, just limp coldness within Sam's arms. Through tears he reaches and closes his brother's eyes with one last caress. Sam screams in grief, on the edge of insanity as even Dean flickers and fades from him and his arms are left empty...leaving him well and truly alone.

...

Sam starts awake. His head falling from the wood he'd been leaning on causing him to jerk upright quickly. He's confused as to his location blinking through watery, sleepy eyes into the dim lighting of the bunker library. His chest heaves as he brings trembling hands up to wipe away the tears from his cheeks.

He takes several deep calming breaths. Breathing air in through his nose and out through his mouth. He closes his eyes, fingers spreading on cool, hard wood flooring beneath him, grounding himself in the real world where neither his father nor mother, or supernatural entity has succeeded in ending his brother.

Dean was alive. He was safe. He was here.

Sam sighs looking around through eyes gritty like sand. He doesn't remember falling to sleep in between his lonely sorrow and the falling adrenaline from the hunt. He doesn't know how long it's been, or what time it was, but does know he needs to find Dean. He's already had more time than Sam's comfort left to himself.

Sam tries to shake off the ominous shadow of the dream as he groans, rising to his full height. It doesn't really work as he goes in search for Dean, a darkness, a quiet, reigning over the bunker and their lives. Sam only prays it would be useless against them, as family...as brothers. Prays and hopes that they can be bigger than this, knows that they've been through this before. Knows they will get up and move on and be "alright" eventually.

And there was the key word especially for Dean. Eventually.

Eventually for Dean could be a very very long time. And Sam wants him to be okay, needs him to be okay because what was Sam that Dean wasn't? He needs his brother like the air he breathes, he needs his brother to be okay like the very blood pumping through his veins. Needs his smiles and laughs like the warmth of Sam's skin that hints of life's spark and a heart beating.

Sam runs a hand down his face wearily as he stumbles through the hallways of their home.

Their home.

Not mom's home.

Not enough for her, couldn't keep her here, couldn't make her stay. Couldn't make her happy...couldn't make her forget, ugly voices whisper to him. Insecurities reminding him of his failures, of his part in losing her...some part of him knows it's nonsense and tells himself it's not his fault. But the pain and loneliness have him wrapping long arms around himself as he shivers, misery settling over him like a thick, cold fog.

As Sam hunches in on himself he knows he has to find his brother, knows Dean has got to be so much worse than him. His heart jumps to his mouth as he hears a strangled cut off cry of his name from a few halls over.

He's dashing through the bunker before he even knows what he's doing. Colt in his hands after he slipped it from the back of his jeans.

"Dean?!"

...tbc

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