A/N REPOSTING THIS because I forgot to explain about the two "missed" episodes. See notes at the bottom. I mean it, this time!

This takes place instead of s04e09 and s04e10 (I Know What You Did Last Summer and Heaven and Hell). Those two episodes DO NOT HAPPEN. In this AU. Explanation of why they don't happen is at the end of the chapter. S04e08 (Wishful Thinking) does take place, but I'm not getting into. It's just some dialog change, but nothing that significantly changes the plot here so… yeah. Just roll with it.

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Elkhorn Motel

5500 S 9500 E Street

Jensen, UT

November 14, 2009

3:43 a.m.

Dean woke with that all too familiar feeling of just wrongness in his brain. He blinked at the clock and sighed, rolling over to check on his brother, who was no doubt the source of the feelings.

The bed was empty, and fully made.

"Sam?" he groaned and lifted his head, looking at the open, dark bathroom door on the other side of Sammy's bad, before his gaze found the soft glow of his brother's laptop on the table by the window. "Dude" he sighed and collapsed back against his pillow. "The fuck are you doing up, man?"

"My job," Sam said dismissively.

"At 3:45 in the damn morning?" Dean challenged. "Come on, man. We just rolled into this hole last night. We haven't even interviewed anybody to figure out what's happened, beyond a bunch of people croaking. You already hacked into the police and coroner records, and the newspaper articles. What the hell could you possibly be researching?"

"Just need a better lay of the land," Sam shrugged, a little too nonchalantly for his uptight little brother.

"Lay of the land," Dean huffed and pushed himself until he was sitting against the headboard, carefully avoiding the (he hoped) fake antlers mounted at the top. "What lay of what land? It's a six square mile community of 372 people. 368, now. Everybody here works at either the local store, the local bar, the city hall slash sheriff's office slash local clinic or at one of the national parks nearby. They don't even have their own school or fire department, for cryin' out loud. What the hell is there to research?"

"Just go back to sleep, Dean."

"I will if you will," he offered and just nodded at the way Sam slid his shoulders a little further forward and kept typing. "Yeah. What I thought." He finally got up and crossed to the table, spinning the free chair around to sit with his arms crossed over the back, facing his brother. He just watched Sam type for a minute before resting his chin on his arms. "How long?"

Sam glanced up, then kept typing. "Until I'm done."

"No," Dean sighed. "How long since you've last slept, Sammy?"

"I'm fine."

And Dean had had enough. He reached out to snap the laptop shut, fast enough that Sammy didn't actually pull all his fingers out in time.

"HEY!" Sam protested, sucking on his pinched forefinger.

"You're not fine."

"Of course, I am. Why wouldn't I be?" Sam challenged, no doubt hoping that Dean would back off when faced with the prospect of what would inevitably turn into a chick-flick moment if Dean kept pressing.

Dean pressed anyway. "Oh, give me a break. It's been ten days since you got out of the Panic Room, Sammy, and you haven't had a decent night's sleep since."

"I sleep!"

"Twenty minutes at a stretch eight times on the two-day drive here," Dean countered. "That ain't sleeping, Sammy. Shit, that's not even napping."

"What are you the Dream Police, now?"

"If I have to be!" Dean snapped, and watched as Sam stood and began pacing the room, still sucking on his pinched finger.

Dean closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He took a deep breath, and stood himself, stepping in front of his brother on his path across the room. When Dean spoke again, his tone was even and gentle. Sammy's bruise-sucking turned into fingernail nibbling and pulled his brother's hand away from his mouth. "And for the record, I don't expect you to be."

That brought Sammy's wide hazel eyes — edging towards that hurt, frightened translucent green that Dean really hated — snapping up to meet his own.

"I don't… I'm not… I'm fine," Sam insisted, his voice shaking.

"Sam," Dean sighed. "I just want to help. Just… look, I don't… I don't know what you saw while you were detoxing," he admitted, and grimaced when Sam looked away. "And I'm not asking you to share," he assured him. "But… you gotta let me in, Sammy. At least a little. You're having nightmares…"

"Like you're not," Sam spat back.

"We're not talking about me…"

"Of COURSE not!"

"…because I'm still getting my four hours a night," Dean continued over the interruption. "But you're not, and it… it's not healthy, Sam. It's gonna kill you, man."

"You're over…"

"Or it'll kill me."

Sam froze and sunk down to sit on the bottom of Dean's bed, staring up at his brother in shock. "Wh… what?"

"Nothing is more dangerous on a hunt than a tired hunter," Dean recited, and gently placed a hand on one shoulder. "Sammy, you're wasted. You gotta get some sleep. Let me help."

Sam shook his head. "You can't."

"I've always been able to help your nightmares, Sammy," Dean reminded, "since you were little. If you let me, I still can."

"You CAN'T," Sam repeated.

"Why not?!" Dean demanded, frustrated.

"Because I… I'm not having nightmares," Sam whispered. "It's not… it's worse than that."

"Night terrors?"

Sam shook his head. "Worse."

"What worse than that?"

"When they're real," Sam said softly, and his voice shook.

"Real."

Sam just nodded.

"Like… Real h—" and it hit him. "Lucifer," he realized and Sam full on flinched at the word. "That vision you had during detox. You're still having them."

Sam nodded quickly. "Yeah. Every time I sleep."

"Jesus." Dean sat beside him on the bed, and almost smiled when Sammy immediately leaned over so their shoulders were touching. "That same thing? About you… about him and…"

"No," Sam shook his head. "He doesn't need to tell me again. I'm his, as soon as the last Seal breaks. And I know that's Truth."

"Then what…?"

"It's… there's a lot…" Sam closed his eyes and flopped back onto the bed, his hands landing above his head. "It's always different," he told the ceiling and didn't seem to notice when Dean lay down beside him and twisted onto his side, looking down at his little brother. "It's always… There's earthquakes, and famine and… volcanoes, and wars, and… just…"

"End of the world stuff," Dean suggested.

"Yeah," Sam nodded and turned his head until their eyes met. "And I'm in the middle of it," he said, quietly. "It's not, like, me me… It's him," he admitted, and looked away again, "but it's… it's me. And the look… he's just enjoying it so much, you know? Like it's a, a, fairground to him or something. His own personal Disneyland. I just… He's ending the world, and he's using me to do it, and I can't… I can't stop him. There's nothing I can do. I just have to watch," he ended, his voice so soft and broken that Dean had to strain to hear it at all.

"Aw, Sammy…"

"And in every one," he continued, "I see you. You, and Rick, and Bobby, and Castiel. Ellen and Ash and Jo, and you're just… everyone I love is just… You're all either just standing there looking at me, like you expect me to fix it… or you're dead. You're just… torn apart and…" His breath was shaking now, as the tears he hadn't noticed began to fall in earnest. "Sometimes, he kills you… and it's… and it's my hands, and I, I can't stop him, but I can feel it, your, your bones breaking and your, your blood and your… your insides, and…"

And that was enough of that. "Shhh. Shhshhshhshh," Dean pulled his baby brother into his arms, and rocked him, just a little as Sammy clung to him, monkey-like, the way he always had when he was little.

"I can't… I can't stop it," Sammy panted into his neck.

"I know, I know," Dean soothed, one hand running gently over his hair, the other tracing circles on his back. "It's okay, it's okay."

"I can't watch that, Dean. I can't," he sobbed. "It's every time I close my eyes, man. And I can't… I can't sleep. I can't. I'll just… it's always… I can't, I can't…"

"Shhhh, easy, little brother." Dean placed a gently kiss on the mussed hair. "It's okay. I'm here. You're not alone. It's just a dream."

"It's not a nightmare, Dean," Sam said. "It's not. It's… it's the future, and I can't…". He frowned and pulled slowly away, extracting himself from his brother's comfort to roll away, to sit on the side of the Dean's bed.

His brother scrambled up to sit up beside him. "I know it's not a dream, Sam," Dean assured, "but it's not real, either. You know that, right? You've seen stuff and we've fixed it. The Dad dream. That dream about Brady dying. You stopped 'em both. You can stop this. WE can stop this."

Sam stood, looking down at him with the saddest smile Dean had ever seen.

"Sam?"

"You're right," Sam nodded. "I can stop this." He reached a hand out and rested it lightly on Dean's shoulder even as the elder Winchester started to stand, alarmed by something wrong he could see, could FEEL in his brother's gaze.

"Sam…."

"Somnos," Sam said quietly. "Somno frater, usque ad lucem," he chanted and caught Dean when his eyes fluttered closed and lowered him to the bed, lifting his bowed legs gently onto the covers.

"I'm sorry, Dean," he said and brushed a hand over the short hair. "But you're right. I can stop it. And I have to. The only way I can."

He turned away and grabbed his gun, taking care to be sure it was loaded before slipping into the back of his waistband.

Before he left, Sam returned to the bed, covered his brother carefully, and pressed a kiss to Dean's forehead.

He fished his phone out of his pant pocket, and send a group text to Dean, Bobby and Rick, then left his phone on the table by the window before walking out the door.

For a minute or more, the screen glowed with the words. I'm sorry. This is all I can do. Forgive me. I love you.

When the phone began to ring minutes later, there was no one left to hear.

It was still ringing — as was Dean's — when the night was split by the sound of a single gunshot.

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A/N

I'm pretty sure that's the shortest chapter I've posted, and I am well aware I am six times a bastard for doing this but… how could I NOT?

"Dream Police" is a song by Cheap Trick.

As always, the latin Sam uses is translated from english by an app. The original english was "Sleep. Sleep, brother, until the dawn."

So, s04e09 and s04e10. I reviewed those two episodes, and the others that Anna is in, and IMO (which, hey, my AU, my opinion counts) those two eps (and Anna, generally) only served a couple of purposes. 1) To introduce us to Alastair during the fight scene in the church, so that Dean would confess that he got off the rack to Sam (end of s04e11 Family Remains. But Dean already confessed all that back in Chapter 43, when Dean had that night terror and tried to kill Sammy. 2) To introduce the idea of an angel falling to earth, instead of hell. An angel who aligns with Humanity, not Heaven or Hell. This is mostly (again IMO) to introduce Cas to the idea, and to help him switch his alignment from Heaven to Humanity (okay, the Winchesters). But that's already happening, we can see that throughout the entire Panic Room sequence. 3) To (briefly) let Dean get some. I'll be handling that in my own way :-D So, Anna basically serves no purpose in the plot of this AU, and trying to find a way that the boys could find out about her without Ruby bringing it to them was a pain the butt, so… Yeah. No Anna is needed here, so we're just skipping right over her. (At least for now; I MIGHT bring her in later as a wild card, but haven't decided yet.) One way or another, those 2 episodes don't happen.