"Sam." The voice filtered through the inky blackness that the hunter currently was swimming in. He tried to push it away, finding the call intrusive and unwanted. It was persistent though, and try as he might to ignore it, he found it was pulling him further and further towards the harsh light. "Sam."

Sam opened his eyes, confused at the strange position he found his body. He lifted his head, noticing first how stiff he was, and then almost immediately after, how sore his chest and head were. He looked up, his eyes resting on his brother's motionless form. He heard his name repeat and turned, seeking out the source.

Cas swam into his view, on the bed behind him. The angel was still slicked with blood, and laying on his back. His head was turned, blue eyes open, and he was staring at Sam.

"Cas." Sam breathed, grimacing and leaning back against the wall to partially support him while he turned to face the angel properly. "Are you-"

"I'm alive at least." Cas replied, a cough rattling from deep in his chest. "I'm healing… just slowly."

Sam scrunched his eyebrows together, wrapping an arm around his busted ribs and pushing himself to his feet. He crashed into the chair that sat between the two beds, summoning another herculean feat of strength to slide it slightly closer to the angel to check him over. "You're a mess."

"I cannot yet heal you or your brother's injuries." Cas apologized through his own pained wince.

"Never mind us. You're lucky you survived that." The hunter had to admit when he first saw the state of that library, he was sure Cas was dead.

Cas tried to raise his hand, in an attempt to deflect the attention. "Dean needs your help."

"Right." Sam tried to shake his disoriented brain back to working. He pushed the chair backwards, and turned it around to face his brother's side, still not being able to summon the strength to stand. He opened the nightstand and pulled out a clean cloth, wetting it with the glass of water on top of the table. He began to clean the dirt and debris from the various cuts. The task was made slower by the amount of blood that had dried.

Finally he could avoid it no longer, and he dragged himself to his feet again, gathering a few supplies before sinking gracelessly to sit on the edge of Dean's bed. He used the cloth to grip and remove the large wood shard in Dean's shoulder, and squeezed a stream of water through it to push out any splinters. He began to stitch it up, grateful that Dean remained unconscious for the time being. When that was done, he could finally turn his attention to his brother's arm. He splinted it as best he could, trying to immobilize it in a way that might offer it protection if Dean seized again.

Sam decided not to bother to re-hook the IV line Dean had ripped out for the time being. As it were, he was losing steam quickly. He managed to pull himself to the third and final bed in the infirmary, sinking down and letting his body give into the darkness yet again.

The next time Sam was roused from the depths of unconsciousness, it was for a much more gentle sound. "Sammy?" Sam opened his eyes, focusing a lot more quickly this time. This time it was Dean's alarmed face that greeted him. He looked deep into Dean's eyes, trying to gauge his mental status. "What happened?" Sam didn't hear the desperation that usually accompanied Dean's delirium, and was relatively sure that at least at the moment, Dean was fairly oriented.

"Hey." Sam croaked, his throat dry from all the dust, and he took a moment to get his breath under control.

"You're bleeding." Dean whispered, not moving from his prone position. He squinted, trying to see his brother clearly. "What happened?"

Sam closed his eyes as he sat up, arm back to its position around his painful ribs. He knew from the hitch in his brother's breath, it didn't go unnoticed. He wasn't sure how much to tell Dean. He reached up and touched his own forehead. He grabbed another clean cloth and wet it, beginning to dab away the blood running down his face. The wound didn't need stitches, he could feel, but head wounds bled like a bitch anyway.

Dean had rolled his head and took a sharp intake of breath as he saw the angel beside him. "Cas…" He breathed, trying to remember anything, but only drawing up blanks. "Is he-?" He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

Sam shakily approached the angel and checked over him again. The angel's wounds were mostly healed by this point, but the blood coating the cot and floor was evidence of what had been. "He's alive, just unconscious." He sighed, slipping back down into the chair again. "He's healing. What about you?"

Dean clamped his eyes shut, taking stock of his own body. Even unconscious he had been shaking, and now that he was awake, it was only worse. This jolted every small point of pain on his body. "I feel like I just survived a bomb going off." He groaned. He opened his eyes as Sam let out an involuntary snort of laughter. It didn't hold any joy, and Dean frowned. Sam only sounded like that when he was a little too close to the truth. An explosion? That didn't make any sense…

"Dean, I think we have to restrain you." Sam said softly.

Dean pressed himself away from Sam on instinct at the suggestion. "What?"

Sam frowned. "Your lucid moments are getting further apart."

Dean tried yet again to pull up any sort of memories, but the ones he dredged up didn't make sense. Cutting into his own arm… holding an angel blade… He looked back at Cas, trying to jog his mind, but it didn't work. "What did I do?" He finally dared to ask, his voice cracking slightly.

Sam shook his head. "It doesn't matter."

"My arm is broken. Cas looks like he lost a fight with a semi-truck, and you're bleeding from your head and moving like every single one of your ribs is broken." Dean listed firmly. "Now you're saying you have to tie me down, just tell me what I did."

Sam sighed, his body and mind thoroughly exhausted at this point. "You didn't recognize us. But we're okay."

Dean furrowed his brow, his chest constricting. "Sammy, did I hit you?"

"No." Sam said softly. As Dean's face contorted into one of disbelief he repeated himself stronger. "No, you didn't."

Dean slipped into silence, letting his mind run for a few minutes. "Do it." He said softly, swallowing.

Sam stood, walking over to one of the medical cabinets, grabbing a full set of restraints made for these beds. "We um…" He started to fit them in place. "I didn't want to use these… I don't know what will happen if you have a seizure wearing them."

"I'll be fine."

"This is just until Cas is back. When we can watch you, we will take them off." Sam tried to assure. He tightened three straps and then went to work makeshifting something on Dean's broken arm. He didn't need it perfect, he just needed Dean to not be able to reach anything to free himself.

"It's okay, Sam." Dean tried to comfort his brother. "I'm okay."

"It's my fault. Cas wasn't back with you yet… I left to call Mom, I should have waited until he was back…" Sam's heart rate increased as he thought back on the events. If things had gone slightly different, one or all of them could be dead right now.

"It's not your fault. I remember sending you to call Mom."

"I shouldn't have-"

"Sam. Look at me." Sam turned his gaze up to his older brother. "I don't know what happened, but it's not your fault."

Sam nodded, eye hollow as he looked down. "I'm glad you're okay." He looked at the floor for a solid minute before he became aware of the strain in Dean's breathing. He was about to ask when he heard Dean speak.

"Did I-" Memories were starting to drip back into his mind out of the fog. "Did I try to blast Cas away?" He sounded so small, and Sam wanted to just lie to him, spare his feelings. But he figured that would be worse when he found out later.

"Yeah."

"Oh god…" Dean looked past Sam again, looking over the angel with newfound horror. "He got hurt… but wait." He scrunched his eyes shut again. "I don't remember… how did you get injured?"

"The blast wave from the spell hitting the barrier came back at us pretty fast." Sam shook his head. "I'm really okay."

"Sam-" His voice was starting to slur, and Sam recognized that the hunter was about to either seize or pass out. He hoped against hope for the second. Dean meanwhile was fighting against it as hard as he could. "Sam I'm so sorry."

Sam offered him a tired smile and just squeezed his brother's hand as he slipped back into unconsciousness.

The younger Winchester was getting tired of everyone's battle with staying awake. He wouldn't let himself start his own battle, and instead stood. Sam headed towards their rooms, inspecting the structural integrity of the hallways as he went. He slipped into Dean's room, grabbing his laptop, regretting leaving his own in the library.

By the time Sam walked back into the infirmary, Cas was sitting at the edge of the bed, watching Dean pensively. He looked up at Sam, that expression that crossed between sorrow and regret in his eyes. "I won't be able to heal your wounds for some time" He apologized.

"Don't worry about it Cas. When you get the mojo back, go for Dean's arm first." He requested. He sank down at the desk, leaning back and letting his eyes focus on the wall instead of anything significant.

"He already had the sigil drawn when I walked into the room." Cas folded his hands together, his expression hardening.

"There wasn't anything you could have done." Sam assured him. "I don't think there was anything I could have done either."

"The library?"

Sam shook his head. "There's nothing much left." He gave a small laugh. "I think I can actually fix it." He gave another exhausted smile at Cas' questioning glance. "When I was looking for a way out…" He held up a book he had left in the room earlier. "The bunker's structure has spell-work right in it. With the right incantations, the walls and ceilings should repair themselves. Bit of clean up, new furniture, back to new. We just have to wait for the quarantine to be lifted. It has to be done from the sigil work outside the door."

"And the books?" Cas pushed.

Sam frowned. "No… they're gone."

"I'm so sorry."

"Me too."

Sam had turned his attention back to research, though he was saddled with a new despair, not knowing where to even start again. Cas undid three of Dean's restraints with Sam's approval, leaving the last wrist tied down, something to slow Dean down if he had another break with reality.

The next seizure Dean suffered, he did so without consciousness on either side of the event. Sam slammed his fist into the table as it passed. He felt so useless being unable to find the supernatural curse or illness that gripped his brother. "We have to have missed something." He hissed, too restless to keep sitting. He stalked from the room, returning a few minutes later holding Dean's coat, bag, and boots.

Cas watched Sam as he began to pull things out of the bag and jacket pockets with a desperation that bordered on insanity. "It could still be a witch."

"You checked for hex bags." the angel pointed out.

"Not hard enough." Sam spat, tossing things one at a time out onto the empty cot. Knife, small leather booklet of fake IDs, a few maps, Dean's empty flask. "Something here has to be a clue." He threw the coat down in frustration. He stood in the middle of the room, the gears in his mind turning as he stared at the pile of stuff laid out before him.

Something was bothering Sam. He began to replay the timeline of his brother's illness, the symptoms, the onset. He tried to recall certain details about Dean's behavior prior to falling ill. He frowned. "I'll be right back."

"Where are you going?"

"I have to check something…"

Sam walked out of the infirmary, walking first into the kitchen. He checked the fridge first, then the cabinets. He frowned, his body feeling shaky as he started to build a case to support his theory.

His check of Dean's room only strengthened his suspicions. He couldn't check the library to be sure, but he figured it would tell the same story if what he could remember was true.

Cas was standing, arms crossed when Sam returned. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

Sam didn't take his eyes off his brother's still form. "I don't think it is a supernatural illness."

"Then what?"

Sam reached down and picked up the empty flask and tossed it to Cas. He inspected it carefully and then turned to Sam, understanding slowly starting to settle in. He frowned. "Dean hasn't had a drink in days…"

Sam felt a little like he wanted to be sick.

"Is that enough? To do all this?"

Sam sank down to sit on the cot next to Dean's belongings. "I don't-" He knew he was lying. He had been ignoring Dean's growing drinking problem since they were fighting the apocalypse the first time. Who the hell didn't need to drown themselves a little when they crawl out of hell? He figured Dean had earned the relief, and thus had pushed it out of his mind. There had been times in his life where he felt a growing concern, but Dean had always seemed to put those to rest.

Besides, it wasn't like Dean was falling over drunk at all hours of the day. Though as Sam stood there and thought back, he didn't think he could recall a day where Dean hadn't been drinking. He started the day with coffee (most days), but it was a beer with lunch, and the days almost always ended with a glass or two of something stronger.

Sam didn't think that would be the problem, but then again, he tried to recall how many times he had pulled a face at Dean taking a sip from that damn flask he always had on him. How many times Dean resupplied the bunker with whiskey and beer. That almost every night on a case, Dean stayed out late at a bar. And then there was the assortment of empty bottles he had overlooked the first few times in Dean's room. Sam was pretty sure Dean had been drinking to find sleep most nights, away from his brother in private, probably to spare himself whatever judgement Sam would have saddled him with.

Sam hadn't noticed because he had just always thought if it was a problem it'd be obvious. Dean ate, hunted, slept. He acted completely normal. Sam tried to latch onto the last time they had been locked in, that he hadn't withdrawn then, but then he could specifically remember sharing a bottle of something with him. This time they must've just run out...

"I think so." Sam finally answered Cas' question. "I think it's worse than we thought. Worse than I thought."

He approached his brother's laptop with newfound dread and typed the words he didn't want to know about into the search bar. There were hundreds of results, this medical explanation so much more researched than the obscure supernatural causes he was desperately searching for the last few days.

Cas took a seat in the chair beside Dean, trying not to hover and make Sam more uncomfortable than he already was. He was still trying to grasp concepts of how the human body worked. This was something he had been vaguely familiar with before, but never so closely.

Sam didn't speak again for almost half an hour, choosing to click link after link, comparing information, looking for some flaw in the logic, but the more he read, the more certain he was.

"Now that we know the cause, what do we do?" Cas asked, hoping for guidance on their next course of action.

Sam frowned. "I don't know. This is really bad."

Cas tilted his head. He had thought that learning the cause would bring them closer to helping.

"Withdrawal… bad withdrawal like this… it's normally done in a hospital. In the ICU."

"And without it?"

"We don't have any of the medications we'd need to help him." Sam pushed away from the desk, bringing shaking hands to sort through every cabinet in the infirmary, hoping for some reason he'd find something new, though he knew the inventory well. He had been the one to stock them. "He needs something to stop the seizures… to stop the symptoms. A safe place to hallucinate without possibly using spell sigils to almost bring the entire building down on our heads. Someone to get him breathing again when he doesn't." Sam could feel the panic creeping up his spine, despite his best efforts to control it. His ribs protested as his body tensed.

"Sam-" Cas was right beside him, a hand firmly on the Winchester's shoulder, grounding him. "You know the cause now. You can anticipate the course of events."

"Cas, people can die from this when they aren't treated."

The hand on his shoulder squeezed. Cas looked right into his eyes. "Dean is strong. You know what the cause is. You are on the best course you can be." He reaffirmed. "Right now you need to calm down and make plans on how to combat possible complications."

Sam pulled his hand up, grabbing the angel's arm, and holding on trying to steady himself as he nodded. "Yeah… you're right." He let the angel guide him back down to sit at the desk, making sure the hunter wasn't going to pass out again before he stepped back to give him some space.

Sam took a deep breath, mentally bracing himself to dive back into the computer and begin compiling a list of worst-case-scenarios. He looked up, taking in the image of his brother. "We're going to get through this." He stated firmly, not sure if he was trying to convince himself, comfort Cas, or make a promise to his brother. He closed his eyes, nodding and trying to reassure himself.

"We're going to get through this."