-Summary: It's the end of the world and they've got one last card to play. Castiel sends Dean back: back before everything. Now he has time to stop what's coming, but no friggin' clue how to do it. Time travel should really come with a manual. TIMELINE AU

-Chapter Warnings: None that we haven't already seen before: swearing, brotherly angst, and a heck of a cliffhanger ;)

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The Road So Far (this Time Around)

Chapter 14

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The car flew past fields and telephone posts as the sun began to set on Midwestern USA. Sam had a pad of paper in his lap and was sketching near fanatically with a pen they had likely stolen from a motel somewhere along the line. Dean was starting to get annoyed with his brother's lack of attention to his questions of fair incredulity.

"Tell it to me again, cuz you're not making any sense."

"It was a vision, Dean."

"Yeah, I got that part, Professor X. I mean the part where you know the thing that's after dad."

His younger brother rubbed at his forehead, annoyed. The headache was still eating away at the inside of his skull, despite the couple of aspirin he popped as soon as he got in the car. "I don't know what it is. I just….recognized its eyes."

Dean frowned over at him before refocusing on the road. "Like you've seen it before?"

"No." Sam shook his head and stared past aching eyeballs at the sketch in front of him. It wasn't great; he was no artist, but he was sure he'd seen that gaze before. "Not the monster, just the eyes."

"Uh-huh." Dean sounded so skeptical that Sam's indignation flared without his consent, and he found himself a hell of a lot angrier than his brother's usual cavalier attitude called for. But Dean caught the look sent his way and had the decency to at least look sheepish. He cleared his throat. "So what else did you see?"

Sam clenched his jaw, but answered all the same as he tucked the sketchbook against the door and rummaged through the bag at his feet for his laptop. "It was dark, and the space was big. Really big. Like a cave."

Dean had to bite his tongue. Hard. "So…Dad's in a cave. He went from Sacramento, California to the world's largest cave?"

Sam's bitchface bordered on the more dangerous end of the Official Bitchface Scale, and Dean told himself to bite harder next time.

"Okay. We'll start looking for caves."

Sam wasn't anything close to appeased, but he didn't argue it any further. Instead, he opened his laptop, determined to prove to his brother that he did recognize those eyes and his vision could lead them to Dad. He knew it could.

-o-o-o-

"Do you remember that zoo we went to in Arkansas?"

Dean glanced over with raised eyebrows, but it was a short-lived look overrun by the smile that spread across his face at the memory. Yeah, he remembered that trip. They'd blown all three weeks of food and hotel allowance John had left them, but it had been worth it. He'd never seen Sammy so excited about anything.

"Man, your face when you saw the giraffes." He laughed, chest tightening with warmth at the memory. "Makes sense, given you're a cousin of theirs."

"Shut up," Sam rolled his eyes, but it was good natured.

"So what about it?"

The younger Winchester stared at his computer screen displaying the Little Rock Zoo website as he scrolled through their collection of animals. "I know I've seen those eyes before, and I keep thinking back to that trip."

Dean gave a cursory glance at the computer, trying to keep the skepticism out of his gaze, and left his brother to it.

-o-o-o-

The older Winchester let more miles pass than he should have before he finally opened his mouth to talk to his brother. Except, he had no idea what to say, and every line that popped into his head made him instantly want to retract his tongue like a tortoise in a shell. He glanced at his brother. Sam was busy typing away, digging into whatever this new vision of his had shown them.

It was a perfect opportunity to let the whole Cas thing go.

Knee-deep in a new lead on Dad, Sammy wasn't likely to remember their last argument for some time, or bring it up again until after they'd found John. It was the perfect time to just drop it.

The older Winchester's knee bounced up and down in a beat of anxiety and he glanced at his brother again. He shouldn't let it go, he knew that. Hell, he'd had enough hands on experience letting shit slide that shouldn't be slid to know how often it came back to trample his ass in a landslide of 'told you so.'

But he still had no clue what to tell his brother.

Cas isn't a demon.

But what was he? It wasn't like he could come out and tell Sam about angels. Right? The idea of letting Sam think Cas was a demon didn't sit right in his chest, though. Sure, the guy was barely an angel anymore, but he knew how Cas would feel letting the younger Winchester think he was evil.

Not that his Cas would ever know, but that still rang a little too close to home for all of them.

I didn't make a deal.

But what had he done? Time travel was definitely off the conversational table. That wasn't something you just tossed out there. Sammy already thought he was lying enough as is; he didn't need to add something truly unbelievable to the mix.

I'm still your brother.

Was he? He certainly wasn't the brother Sam knew.

The never-to-be Stanford lawyer was going to ask all the questions Dean didn't have answers to and press buttons he didn't know if he could tolerate being pushed.

They had other things to worry about. He could bring it up another time.

So Dean tightened his grip on the steering wheel, forced his leg to stop its nervous bouncing, and didn't say a word. Sam was too wrapped up in his search for amber eyes to notice.

-o-o-o-

"That's it." Sam stared at his screen in surprise, hands on the sides to tilt it back so he could stare into the soft red-brown irises looking back at him. "Those are the eyes I saw."

His brother glanced over as he flipped the laptop around. Dean immediately switched his gaze to his brother's face, disbelief painting his own.

"You're kidding, right?"

The look Sam sent him told him he wasn't, and he glanced back at the screen again.

"So…a rhinoceros is hunting dad?" Dean looked away from the image of an African White Rhino, specifically a close-up photo of its eye. He gave a half shrug, which was only seventy-five percent sarcastic. "Well, it's got a certain irony to it, I'll give you that."

"Dean, I'm serious." Sam furled his brow, angry at the brush off, and turned the computer back around. "It wasn't a rhino. It just had those eyes."

His brother, wisely, said nothing. Although he did let out a rather skeptical hum. Lucky for him, Sam was busy staring at the image of the rhinoceros, mind desperately trying to re-pierce the darkness of his vision for the beast that lay beyond.

"They were angrier and there….there wasn't a horn." He closed his eyes to better recall the images he'd seen, disjointed and confusing as they had been. His head spiked with pain and he grimaced, but pushed through. "Maybe…tusks?"

"Awesome," Dean said, sounding anything but. "A Rhino-Mammoth. And it's after dad."

Sam clenched his jaw against his brother's flippancy and went back to his search for creatures fitting that description, no matter what his ass of an older brother thought.

-o-o-o-

They arrived at the location of the payphone – outside a warehouse north of the city – late on the third morning after John had called. The brothers stood around the empty booth, Dean leaning against the side of the Impala as Sam investigated the interior.

"What now?"

The younger Winchester looked over at his shoulder, loss, disappointment, and worry warring on his face. "I don't know."

Dean frowned, uncrossing his arms as he pushed off the car. "What, did you think he was just gonna be hanging out in the phone booth?"

He hadn't meant it to sound cold or accusing. Honestly, he was just surprised that Always-Have-A-Backup-Backup-Plan-Sam didn't have a friggin' backup plan.

His brother still sent him a dirty, slightly hurt look. Sam didn't want to admit that he'd half expected they'd find their Dad's body there. Instead, he shrugged defensively as he stepped out of the booth and looked around the relatively empty Californian street. "We treat it like a case. Knock on doors, ask around. Someone had to see where he went."

Dean watched him for a moment, weighing their options and where his brother's head was at, before conceding with a nod. "Alright, we'll start with the gas station across the street."

Although it looked pretty deserted with not a ton of traffic driving through his part of town, Dean started that way and his brother fell in to step worriedly beside him. He spared him a glance, before hardening his own resolve, if only for the sake of his family. "We'll find him, Sammy."

Despite the olive branch, the younger Winchester answered back, "It's Sam."

-o-o-o-

They didn't find him. They ran down every lead they could, but it looked like John Winchester did nothing more in Sacramento than stop to make a phone call. And that was more than possible; it was likely, even. The man was a highly trained marine followed up by twenty-two years of hunting paranoia. He knew how to disappear, he knew how to not be found, and he knew how to stay that way for months.

They were as good as screwed.

-o-o-o-

The two stopped in a diner on the outskirts of Sacramento that evening, Dean practically dragging his little brother in by the arm for all his whining and bitching about not stopping until they found Dad. But Dean already knew they wouldn't find him, and not just because of future knowledge. He knew the man better than anyone, and if he didn't want to be found then there would be no finding him. At least, not without help.

"Look," he started, trying to punch down his own irritation at his increasingly snippy brother, "we need to regroup."

"Dad doesn't have time for us to 'regroup', Dean. He's being hunted!"

The older of the two pushed on, despite the fierce bitchface and fisting grip on the tabletop that his brother presented him with. "We're no good to him if we can't find him, Sammy. And we're not finding him here! Let's head to Bobby's. Maybe he has some ideas, a tracking spell, something we can use."

Sam didn't look nearly assuaged enough, but he sat back in the booth and stopped arguing. Dean let out a ragged sigh, running a hand through his hair. Their waitress popped up shortly afterward, chipper smile oblivious to the tension between the two.

"I'm Christie, I'll be getting you two anything you need today." She sent a wink Sam's direction, and the sasquatch put at least some effort into smiling back. It wasn't like his missing, injured Dad or unyielding, uncooperative older brother was her fault. "Can I get you started with something to drink? Our lemonade is sublime if you're looking for something sweet."

Dean tuned the girl out, not interested in the potential jailbait like he may have once been. Instead, he placed a quick order somewhat coldly (getting a disparaging look from the bubbly waitress) and waited for her to leave before trying once more to reach his brother.

"We'll find him, Sam, alright? I'm not giving up. But you know the man as much as I do – if he's gone to ground, we aren't finding him. At least not with neighborhood canvasing and phony FBI badges."

Sam spared him a glance and offered a half shrug. Not acquiescence, more like pouting actually, but at least it had a lot less snippiness than the last couple of hours. The older of the two gave himself a minute of reprieve, staring out the window of the diner. He watched cars come and go in the parking lot with disinterest as he steeled himself for continuing the conversation with his irate brother. After a mini pep-talk, he told himself to man up and turned back to Sam.

"This thing, the monster with the Rhino eyes," Dean went for a change in topics as his newest peace offering, "maybe it doesn't have anything to do with Yellow-Eyes. Demons don't usually tangle with the other shit that goes bump in the night. So maybe it's a normal hunt gone bad."

Sam straightened a little, the strong set of his shoulders changing from anger and tension to possibility. "If that's it, then we should be looking at cases in the area."

"Nah, if Dad's on the run, we can't limit the search to just here. We should check further out."

His younger brother nodded, already pulling out his phone and typing away. "I'll look for news down the whole coast."

Christie stopped to drop off Sam's water with a friendly smile and Dean's coffee with a scowl.

Sam had just pulled up the local news for states west of California when he glanced up to say something to Dean and stopped. The doorbell above the diner chimed with the entrance of a new customer, and Sam froze as Meg Masters walked in.

"No way," he muttered, staring in surprise as the woman looked around the shop for a moment before spotting him. She waved with a grin and headed their way.

Dean, noticing his brother's stare, glanced over his shoulder and immediately stiffened. Son of a bitch. When the hell did Meg 1.0 join the playing field? With a sharp swear, he spun back around and Sam saw his hand go for the gun tucked in his waistband.

"We need to get out of here, now," Dean hissed, casting a quick glance around even as he made for the edge of the booth.

"Now, now, no need to run off just yet, boys." Meg slid into Sam's booth before the younger of the two could climb out. Her body language was relaxed, like an old friend meeting up for a light lunch. But her eyes and her frozen smile dared the two to make a scene.

The cocking of a gun beneath the table didn't even phase her.

"Dean," she tsk'ed with a tilt of her head and pouty lips, "Is that any way to treat a lady?"

The hunter responded with more of a grimace than anything and held the gun steady. Sam glanced between the two, having pushed himself as far into the booth as possible and away from the woman he had met just yesterday and was suddenly very sure was not human. She spared him a quick glance, winking a very black eye at him.

He pushed further away from her and spared Dean a look. His brother minutely shook his head.

"So. Sam, Dean. We need to talk."

"I really don't think we do."

She clucked her tongue at the older Winchester and opened her mouth to say more when Christie came back by with a wide smile at the new guest. Sam tried to dissuade her, shaking his head, but she either didn't notice, or didn't get the message.

"Hello, there! Can I grab you something? The boys just placed their orders, but I can get a rush job into the kitchen if you'd like."

Meg smiled sickly sweet up at the woman. "That is just so….sweet of you. How about you join us instead, hm?"

Christie's eyes widened in confusion as her body stiffened and she found herself all but slamming into the booth next to Dean. Her throat seized up as she tried to speak, tried to move, and she glanced, frightened, at the other men at the table.

Dean sat stiff and rigid, jaw clenched. This was not good.

Meg continued their conversation like they were speaking about the weather wit not so much as an interruption. "We want to know where you're getting your information, Dean." Her head tilted to the side once more, a gesture that might have been cute in Meg Master's body, but certainly lost its appeal when matched with those dangerous eyes.

"The Enquirer," Dean snarked right back, face deadpan serious. "Demons and their Bitches, right next to Housing and Décor."

She dropped the smile. Beside him, the waitress made a hiccupping noise and her hand twitched towards her neck. A wide-eyed Dean spared her a worried glance, but immediately refocused on Meg, not trusting that bitch for a second. Sam moved to help, but a wave of Meg's hand and he found himself pressed back against the wall of the booth. Dean's jaw twitched, but he didn't move otherwise.

"Very funny. Let's try again, shall we?"

Christie was crying now, her face turning red and her eyes beginning to bulge in panic.

"Stop!" Sam barked and Meg turned her head sharply to him. "Stop. We'll tell you, just let her go."

The demon loosened her grip on the poor waitress's neck and the girl gasped for breath, tears streaking down her face and a freak-out held at bay only by demonic influence. It was a damn good thing they had chosen a booth near the back out of habit. Not that it mattered, much more and Meg would draw the attention of another half dozen hostages.

"His name is Cass."

"Sam!"

Nothing in the older hunter's face changed to give away his sudden anxiety and tension as he barked his brother's name in warning. Ten years from now Sam could read Dean like a large print book mostly filled with pictures, under a friggin' magnifying glass. But twenty-two year old Sam had been out of the game for four years, and worse, didn't know what was coming.

He trusted his brother, he did. The kid was smart. But Dean gritted his teeth hoping that wasn't a bad call. Because Meg couldn't know about Cas. Hell couldn't know about Cas. Not yet.

Meg was watching the younger of the Winchesters with a sharp, icy smile. "You'll have to do better than that, Sammy."

Christie choked on her sobs as her throat tightened once more.

Sam raised his hands in placation even as he shook his head. "That's all we know, I swear. He's been talking to Dean: Giving him visions, telling him what to do." He chanced a glance at his brother, whose eyes never left Meg's but whose insides loosened at the falsity. He should have known better – Sam always had been a hell of an actor, even as a kid. "We don't know who – or what – he is."

Meg turned black eyes on Dean and beside him the waitress whimpered. "Is that true, Dean?"

Through gritted teeth, the hunter replied, "You calling my brother a liar?"

The demon rolled her eyes. "I am if he expects me to believe a couple of hunters just decided to listen to the little voice that popped up in their head one day."

Her gaze promised pain for the civilian suffering beside them and Dean clenched his jaw hard enough to make it creak. "He didn't give me much of a choice."

Meg snapped her head to the side, intense eyes regarding the older hunter. "Interesting. So you're just a pawn."

Dean's finger tightened on the trigger, but the demon scoffed and gave him a look that called his bluff. Feeling the need to remind him that lives were at stake, Meg watched Dean Winchester intensely as the little thing beside him hiccupped through another terrifying throat squeeze.

She could see the rage and the hatred in the hunter's eyes, and she wondered where his little helper was now.

"Why don't you ask your boss, the Yellow Eyed Demon?" Sam cut in and she turned back to face his irate expression. "He sent you, didn't he? Why don't you interrogate him about the thing using my brother."

Meg smiled sweetly at his ignorance, but declined to respond. Instead, she turned her head sharply to Dean and Christie let out a hiccup as the demon's power tightened around her throat once more.

"Where's John?"

"We don't know," Dean supplied immediately, perhaps a little too quickly for the demon's taste if the sound Christie made was anything to go by. "He wasn't here when we got here."

Meg gave him a look that clearly expressed her skepticism. Beside her, Sam stressed, "He wasn't."

The demon shifted slightly, crossing her arms on the tabletop almost methodically as she regarded the two boys. "Alright, then, here's how this is going down."

She reached over and Sam immediately drew back to press himself against the wall once more. Meg smiled lewdly up at him through those thick lashes as she slipped her hand into his front pocket. He made a grab for her wrist, but quickly found his arms pinned back to his sides. With a leer and a lot more wiggling than necessary, Meg withdrew his phone with a clicking of her tongue and Sam wanted to throw up.

Honestly, he was sort of surprised Dean hadn't shot her, useless as it would be or not. He was glad for his brother's restraint, which looked to be in ever dwindling supply if his purpling face and jumping neck veins were any indication.

Meg sent his phone careening across the counter and Dean slammed his free hand down atop it to keep the device from sliding into his lap.

"You're going to call dear Daddy, and make him tell you where he is."

Dean leaned forward and slid the phone back. Meg caught it, eyes narrowing.

"I don't think so," the older Winchester sneered with the sort of confidence born from being one of the best hunters on the planet.

All mirth, however humorless and cold it had been, disappeared from the demon's face. "Well. That just sucks for little Mary Sue here."

All sounds cut from the poor waitress, whose eyes went wide as he opened and closed her mouth uselessly. Nothing, not sound or air or panic, was getting in or out. She looked desperately at the other two as tears streamed down her reddening cheeks.

Dean, refusing to so much as look at the civilian which could very well blow his play sky-high, leaned forward and regarded the demon with equally dangerous seriousness. "See, you can kill every person in this diner, but at the end of the day you'll still be dead. And since killing demons is part of the job description, I'm going to call that a win."

He tapped the barrel of the gun against the bottom of the table, and Meg's eyes darted down, the first strands of uncertainty filtering through her eyes.

"You're not seriously stupid enough to walk in here knowing I've got the Colt, are you?"

Meg regarded him with slivered eyes. Christie was starting to go dangerously purple, surpassing panic, but those at the table were paying her little attention. The humans couldn't afford to, and the demon had already forgotten her existence other than a means to an end.

"You're bluffing," she finally concluded, though her gaze did not lighten with the assuredness that filled her voice. "You wouldn't bring it here, where you can't keep it safe."

Dean shrugged a shoulder. "Probably wouldn't have," he conceded, "if you hadn't been following us since the bus station."

Meg sneered, physically rolling her eyes as she leaned back in the seat. "Bullshit. You didn't spot me."

"White van, Nebraska license plates. Want the number?" Dean's gaze was ice cold, and Sam glanced at him, barely managing to hide his own surprise. His brother hadn't said a word. Then again, this frigid, hard-edged man across the booth from him was hardly his brother.

Meg paled, and her eyes darted to the tabletop once more. It was obvious she wanted more than anything to check under the table, but Dean made it pretty clear the first thing he'd do if she moved was shoot her.

The hunter made a sudden aborted movement forward, and the demon smoked out of Meg Master's faster than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest.

Christie started screaming.

The older hunter swore as he pushed her out of the booth rather roughly. She stumbled, managing to catch herself on one of the counter booths a few feet away. But by then they had the attention of the entire diner. Christie was hysterical, as she had every right to be, and the civilians of Sacramento, good people that they were, came to her aid. One of the patrons was yelling, another had her phone out and was clearly calling the cops. The cook was rounding the corner with a meat-cleaver in hand.

"Grab her!" Dean hissed at his brother with a frantic head gesture at the ailing Meg Masters, even as he clawed his way out of the booth. Sam, who had been justifiably taking a moment to gather himself, pushed at the stunned, confused woman even as Dean pulled at her from the other side.

The human that was Meg Masters was almost boneless, having not had control of her own body for weeks. As soon as she was out of the booth, supported by his brother, Sam was following and all but scooped her up and into his arms.

Dean rounded his gun on the approaching chef and Sam blinked at the .45 caliber, ivory inlaid weapon that was definitely not the Colt.

Son of a bitch, and that wasn't even his line.

The two booked it out of the diner, Dean holding anyone who tried to stop them at gunpoint, as they essentially kidnapped the stunned Meg Masters and hauled ass out of Sacramento.

-o-o-o-

When Sam asked him why he hadn't actually brought the Colt in if he knew they were being followed (and the sarcastic, 'Thanks for the heads up on that by the way' had paired well with one of the more pissy bitchfaces), the older Winchester had to admit his bluff. He'd seen the van pull into the parking lot a few minutes before Meg had shown up. Sure, he'd immediately recognized the state plates from force of habit and years on the road, but she had parked out of view from the window bordering their booth.

And it wasn't like he'd actually be paying it enough attention to memorize the license plate. If Meg had called his bluff, things would have ended very, very differently for them.

Luckily, time and time again proved that demons were self-preservationists first and evil second.

-o-o-o-

Dean kept glancing at the back seat, where a quiet post-possession Meg was still processing what was going on. They were on their way to the hospital, only a couple blocks away, to drop the girl off.

He couldn't believe she was alive. They'd saved her this time around. He would never have to look into the angry, aching eyes of her ghost as she blamed him for her death.

Sam was carefully drawing the anti-possession tattoo they would leave her with, because Meg was absolutely the type of demonic bitch to re-possess the same human, just for cruelty's sake.

They dropped her off at the emergency entrance with a yell for help, and apology for leaving, and a drawing clenched tightly in her shaking hand.

-o-o-o-

"We need to go back," the younger Winchester announced before they'd even made it out of the county. Dean was a tense mess, checking the review mirror for more than just cops. "The girl could know something."

"Sammy, come on. She's traumatized. She's going to be lucky to remember her own name after something like that." Dean rapped on the steering wheel as he guided the Impala to the highway. Back roads would be safer, but they didn't have time. They honestly needed to get out of the state before the people in that diner could get the cops looking for them.

He was going to have to change the plates on the Impala, just to be safe.

"She could have information on the Yellow-Eyed-Demon!" Sam argued. "Meg was in her head, man. She has to know something."

Dean finally spared an incredulous look at his brother, who was usually the sympathetic, not to mention smarter, of the two. "Sam. Everyone in that diner thinks we just kidnapped a woman at gunpoint! We're gonna be lucky to get out of the state without being arrested!"

Sam grit his teeth hard enough that Dean could hear the creaking. His brother knew he wasn't wrong, but he could see it in Sam's eyes: the desperation for information.

He'd seen it before, after all.

"Look, I swear to you. We will figure this out. But right now, we need to get the hell out of here while we still can."

Sam settled in his seat, seeing reason but completely unhappy about it.

-o-o-o-

They made the news that evening, even as far away as the boarder of Wyoming, where they stopped for the night. The police had rough sketches of them, though luckily no cameras had been present in the diner.

The news caster seemed a bit baffled by the story, which was contradicted by eye witness accounts. The majority of those present in the diner called it a kidnapping, but the waitress was labeled as an unreliable witness due to trauma, and the woman they had, in fact, kidnapped showed up at the hospital less than an hour later claiming they had actually saved her.

All in all, the police didn't know what to make of it. But official reports on the two were filed, though largely left blank, and tossed into a pile the Sacramento PD jokingly called 'The Weird Ones'.

It would be six months before those files, significantly thicker by then, would land on the desk of an FBI agent.

-o-o-o-

Sam waited until he was sure his older brother was asleep before quietly slipping from his bed and into the motel bathroom. They were still half a day's drive from Sioux Falls, but convincing Dean to call it for the night had been relatively easy. Despite taking a fair share of the driving recently, Sam knew his brother didn't like relinquishing the wheel, and he was pretty exhausted after the last few days.

Reassured by the soft snores coming from Dean's bed, Sam shut the door with a soft click. He turned around to the sink and old mirror, yellowing along its edges. Gripping the sides of the porcelain surface, he stared into his own reflection, looking for whatever it was that lay beneath the surface.

He knew he could find John. He could almost taste the vision, the edges of it that had been shrouded in darkness, hidden from him. He knew they were there, that the answers were just beyond what he could reach. If only he could push it a little further. If only he could see clearly, like Dean could.

Sam felt the first drops of blood drip from his nose, but he didn't stop. His gaze was lost to the darkness, to those cold amber eyes and John's desperate plea for him to run.

He heard the distant plop of liquid falling in the sink. Distantly, he knew when the drip become a flow. Felt his fingers dig into the sink until his nails screamed. Felt his head pound higher and higher, faster and deeper with every heaved breath he took in the dream. Every inch of light he gained on the beast that was chasing his father. He felt the burning in his legs and lungs as both gave out.

But he never felt the floor hit.

-o-o-o-

Dean woke to a thud. He was upright and stumbling out of the bed before he registered what woke him. But when he did, his first glance was to Sam's empty mattress.

"Sam?"

Silence was the only answer, and he spun in the hotel room, now wide awake. The bathroom door was closed, and a sliver of yellow light gave him some immediate relief. The fact that the sliver only reached half the width of the door, blocked by something on the other side, lessened that relief significantly.

"Sam?" He gave a quick rap on the wood and then tried to push it open. Locked.

Really, Sammy?

He gave the door a bodily shove with his shoulder. The cheap lock gave almost immediately, but the wood bounced back heavily, blocked by something on the other side. Something he was growing increasingly worried was his younger brother.

"Sam!" He pushed on the door forcefully, grunting with the effort of moving his brother's dead weight as he got the door cracked open just enough to slip into the bathroom. "Shit, Sam!"

The younger hunter was lying unconscious on the tile, blood freely flowing from his nose and eyelids fluttering nonstop in a near seizure of movement beneath. Landing hastily on his knees, Dean scooped his brother's torso into his lap, cradling his head as he tapped at his cheek.

"Sam!" He shook his brother, mindful of the injuries he couldn't find. "God damn it!"

The younger Winchester jerked with a groan, eyes finally opening and stilling their near crazed flickering. The blood was still flowing as Dean pulled Sammy's shirt up and pressed it to his nose in an attempt to staunch the flow.

"D'n?" Sam sounded exhausted, barely awake. His hand flopped uselessly, trying to remove the thing over his face. Dean pushed the appendage away, keeping the cotton pressed firmly to his brother's nose. Damn, the blood wasn't slowing.

"What the hell did you do?"

Sam blinked hazily, hand once again making a half-assed, aborted move. "T-tried to make 'em str'ng'r. Like yurs."

Dean blinked harshly down at his brother, who was deteriorating fast. Shit, whatever was happening, it wasn't getting better. "What?"

"V'zns," Sam muttered, eyes rolling back in his head as he went limp in his brother's arms.