Stapled Shut, Inside an Outside World

[caranfindel]

Length: About 6400 words
Rating: PG 13
Characters: Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, other canon characters
Genre: Gen/AU
Warnings:[Spoilery, click to open]
Language, implied torture
Spoilers: Through 9.02
Synopsis: Sam has learned not to ask questions

Sam wakes up looking at stars. He's still cold - it's always cold in the cage except when Lucifer deliberately creates heat for entertainment purposes (and he certainly has a variety of creative ways to entertain himself with fire) - but it's a different kind of cold. It's not the cold that starts in his bones and fills his hollow insides and freezes him from the center out. It's just normal cold. Earthly cold.

He turns his head. It's dark, but he is surrounded by a circle of small fires. The fires make him flinch at first, but they seem to be, again, normal fires. The fires you'd find topside, though he's not sure why he's in the center of a ring of them, and why some of them appear to have toppled over, as if from a blast or strong wind.

Then suddenly there are hands everywhere, on his body, as if checking for injuries, on his face, and then they're grabbing his arms and pulling him upright and he's standing face to face with Dean. It's not really Dean, of course. Lucifer has played this game before, having a Dean torture Sam in Hell (Sam suspects it's been Adam all along, which seems fitting for so many reasons). But it's never been such an accurate depiction. This Dean feels so much like the real thing. Wild-eyed, somewhat battered, on the verge of tears. "Sam?" it says, trying to shake what must be a blank look off Sam's face. "Are you there? Can you hear me? It's me. You're out. We got you out." The Dean pulls Sam into a hug, and he is suddenly surrounded by its scent. That's the one thing Lucifer never gets right when he creates a version of Dean - the scent. But there's no ash and blood and burned, rotting flesh in the smell of this Dean, just soap and leather and the oil he uses on his guns. Sam pulls away and studies the Dean's face.

"Dean?" he whispers.

"It's me," it says. Dean says. "You're out. You're home." Something in Sam snaps. His knees buckle and he collapses into his brother, sobbing. He is out.

Dean half-carries Sam and bundles him into the back seat of the Impala, then crawls in next to him. Sam leans into Dean and doesn't even notice two other people in the front seat until the car lurches forward onto the road. "That's Tim and Tara," Dean says in response to his confused stare. "I've been hunting with them for a few months. They came up with the spell to get you out of Hell."

"Well, thank God for Tim and Tara," Sam whispers hoarsely, right before he passes out.

///

Tim and Tara are brother and sister, he learns later. They live in a house outside Kansas City that they inherited from their parents. Sam doesn't ask about their parents' deaths. He can easily guess what happened to them and how their children became hunters, and it's best not to know the details. Dean seems to have been living with them for several months, and is in no hurry to move on. Dean and Tim hunt frequently while Sam recuperates, though they are never gone for more than a couple of days at a time. Dean explains that the repercussions of Sam's rescue are spreading like ripples through a pond, and he and Tim are trying to put a lid on things. Sam doesn't ask questions. He's not sure if it's because he doesn't need to know, he doesn't want to know, or he's just too tired and broken to deal with any of it right now. He stays at the house, under Tara's care.

Days stretch into weeks and months. Sometimes Sam joins Tim and Dean on a hunt, sometimes he and Dean hunt alone. But usually he stays home and researches with Tara. She doesn't ask about Hell, and Sam doesn't offer. Hell is always there with him, in the back of his mind, but he manages to keep it suppressed by researching, hunting, drinking - as long as his mind is either occupied, or numb, he can keep the memories at bay. When he's awake, anyway. Nighttime is a different story. For the first week, Sam wakes up every night, drenched in sweat, throat raw from screaming, with Dean shaking him and calmly repeating "It's a dream, Sam. You're not in Hell. It's just a dream." Eventually Dean comes home with a bottle of pills. Sam doesn't ask questions; he just takes one every night and slips into a dreamless sleep. And if his days have a fuzzy, dreamlike quality, and he sometimes wakes up and realizes he can't remember the last week... well, there are worse things to live with.

But one night the pills don't work, and Dean is gone. When Sam comes to his senses, Tara is the one repeating "It's a dream, Sam. You're not in Hell." Tara is tiny, too tiny to shake Sam awake, and it takes several minutes before he opens his eyes and realizes he is sitting up, leaning against her, her hand stroking his hair. "Look at me," she says. "You're safe. You're not in Hell." Sam looks into her huge, kind blue eyes and his panic stills, and when she leans over and kisses him, he is completely lost.

Tara is everything Jess wasn't - petite, pale, and shy, with short dark hair (shorter than Sam's, which amuses Dean to no end) and piercing blue eyes, and Sam is gobsmacked by how quickly he falls for her, how soon he realizes he doesn't want to leave her. His hunts become few and far between, and Dean and Tim spend more and more nights on the road. After a few weeks, Dean doesn't even ask Sam if he wants to go on a hunt; he just nods understandingly and says "She's a good woman. She's good for you." Their lives settle into a comfortable pattern. Sam and Tara stay at home and do research; Dean and Tim hunt together like a well-oiled machine. Against all odds, it seems Sam Winchester has found some kind of happiness.

Sam wakes up one cold morning (cold? how is it already cold? didn't summer just get here?) and reaches for Tara but finds only empty sheets. Still warm, though. Bathroom, he thinks, and he silently pads into the kitchen - Dean and Tim came home late last night, and he doesn't want to wake them. But as he approaches, he hears hushed voices.

"Dean, I'm pregnant," says Tara. And Sam's world skitters to a stop.

"Okay," says Dean. And for some reason it sounds like the end of a conversation, not the beginning. Dean sounds, not sad or hopeful or happy or even surprised, but somehow resigned. Something about it makes Sam's heart lurch uncomfortably. He steps quickly into the kitchen. Dean and Tara exchange a look that makes his heart sink even further.

"Something you want to tell me?" he asks.

Tara sighs, then smiles. "I'm pregnant. You're going to be a father. I'm sorry, I didn't want you to find out this way."

"But you're okay with it, right?" says Sam anxiously. The mood in the room is still unsettled and unhappy and it breaks his heart that either Tara or Dean would be anything less than overjoyed.

Tara beams. "I'm very okay with it."

"Good," Sam says, and he lets out the breath he didn't realize he was holding, wraps her in an embrace. "Good. I am too." His eyes flick to Dean, looking for a smile, and he is disappointed to see concern on his brother's face. "No, Dean, I know what you're thinking, and it's not going to be like that," he calmly assures him. "This baby isn't going to be like us. This baby will have a real childhood. A normal life. (School. College. Friends. Everything we didn't have. Everything I ever wanted.)

Tara's voice is quiet, and she's pressed up against his chest, so Sam can barely hear her say "It's not going to be like that. I'm sorry, but it can't."

"No, it can," Sam insists. "We can make this work. Tara, I promise. No more hunting. I'll be here for you, and the baby, and I'll just do research. We don't have to be a family of hunters. Really."

She pulls away from him, shakes her head. "I'm sorry, Sam, I really am. But the baby's not going to be here." And for the second time this morning, Sam's world stops.

"What are talking about? You're leaving? Why?" She stares at him silently, her blue eyes utterly dispassionate. Sam feels like his heart is being squeezed inside a giant fist. "What's going on?" Tara turns to Dean with an expectant expression. Like Dean has the answer. "What the fuck, Dean?" asks Sam. "What are you not telling me?"

Oh, God, Dean's eyes are full of tears. Never mind, Sam wants to say, don't tell me. I don't want to know.

Dean stares at the floor, unable to meet Sam's eyes. "I told you Tara and Tim came up with the spell to get you out of Hell. But I didn't tell you what it's going to cost." He pauses, swallows. (Please don't tell me.) "It's a soul for a soul. One Winchester comes out, another one goes in. Lucifer gets your first born."

(No no no no no. Not true, not happening.) "Bullshit," Sam spits out. "You wouldn't do that. Tara wouldn't do that." But Tara simply raises one eyebrow. "What..." Sam's voice breaks; he can't finish his question. (Please don't tell me. I don't want to hear the answer.)

Tara asks it for him anyway. "What kind of woman would send her own child to Hell?" In answer, her blue eyes flip to beetle black. "It's kind of a coup for me," she smiles. "Giving birth to the chosen vessel's son? Presenting him to my king? Believe me, it's an honor."

(A demon, oh Jesus, she's a demon, she's been a demon all along. And Dean practically threw her at me.) Sam turns to his brother in shock. "Dean? You knew?"

"Dammit, Sammy!" Dean's eyes are pleading. "It was the only way to get you out! I would have done anything!"

"No, you wouldn't." (My brother wouldn't do that. Dean wouldn't shove me into the arms of a demon to conceive a child that would be handed over to Lucifer.) But Sam does know someone who would. Someone who likes to put Dean's face on things that aren't actually Dean. "Oh, God," Sam groans.

Icy breath tickles his neck. "God?" whispers a cold, familiar voice. "No, Sammy, not God. But close." Then the world falls away.

Falling out of the illusion feels like falling into Hell for the first time. Worse. The first time, he fell from a position of hopelessness and desperation. Falling from hope and happiness... well, it's a lot farther to fall.

"That was beautiful," Lucifer laughs triumphantly. "Michael didn't think I could keep you going that long. They always underestimate us, don't they? Our big brothers."

//////////

When Sam was at Stanford, he read about an experiment where rats were put in a tank of water and forced to swim until they gave up and allowed themselves to drown. The drowning rats were scooped out at the last minute, and put back into the tank the next day. The rats who had been rescued swam longer than they did the first time, when they had no hope of rescue. At the time, Sam wondered why they hadn't learned that they'd be rescued if they stopped swimming, instead of learning to push themselves farther. But now that he's the rat in the tank, he understands. It's harder to give up when you have hope.

After the first time, anyone else would probably decide he's in an illusion as soon as he finds himself outside of Hell. But Sam Winchester isn't anyone else. He knows it's possible to get out, he's seen it happen, and this knowledge dooms him to eternal hope. He keeps swimming, like the hopeful rat who thinks he'll eventually be saved.

//////////

The third time it happens, Castiel himself marches into the cage. He doesn't look like a holy tax accountant; he looks like what you'd end up with if a griffin mated with a dwarf star. And his presence in Hell is not just unlikely; it's impossible - Sam knows Castiel is dead; he felt the power that killed him thrumming through his own hand. But there he is, and Sam knows it's him. The angel grips Sam's shoulder, mutters a phrase in Enochian, and there is a blinding flash of light, and then darkness.

He wakes up in a dingy motel room, where a gleeful Dean explains that Castiel was resurrected by God, took over heaven, and forged a truce with Hell.

"A truce?" Sam says, squinting in disbelief. "A truce?"

"I know," Dean laughs. "It's crazy. But Cas did it. Once he took over Heaven, he said he was tired of fighting with demons, and tired of humans getting caught in the middle." He grins. "Son of a bitch made it happen."

"How did Cas take over Heaven, let alone make a treaty with Hell?"

Dean shrugs. "God went AWOL after he resurrected him, so Cas took that as a sign. Angels were running around like chickens with their heads cut off, demons were in chaos without a leader, Cas kicked some ass, made a few deals, boom! No more holy war."

Deals.

Deals can't be good. (It could be true. It could be real. Leave it alone. Let it be true.) But he can't help himself. "Deals? What kind of deals?"

Dean sighs. "Okay, don't get all pissy. Concessions had to be made. Trust me, it's worth it."

Sam feels a growing sense of dread. "What concessions, Dean?" (Wait, don't tell me, I don't want to know.)

"Dammit, Sammy I did my best, Cas did his best, but Lucifer kind of had us by the short and curlies. So the deal is, he still gets to wear you, but he's going to let you out sometimes. But look, you don't have to be in Hell! No more torture! So, that's good, right?" Dean's face is heartbreakingly hopeful.

Sam groans. "You're not really my brother," he says. "This isn't real." He closes his eyes and waits for the fall.

"Okay, I overplayed my hand on that one," Lucifer chuckles. "But the look on your face, when you thought an angel walked into the cage and saved you? I will never get enough of that."

//////////

"Do you really think you're going to get out of here?" Lucifer asks casually, as if he were chatting with someone in line at the post office.

Sam can barely turn his head enough to see that another poker has been added to the fire. "Maybe," he whispers hoarsely. "I wouldn't be the first."

"That's what I love about you," Lucifer grins. "That cockeyed optimism. It's served you well so far, hasn't it?" He approaches Sam, white-hot poker in his hand. "Ever written your name in the snow? This is going to be kind of like that." He laughs. "Do you have any idea how many names I have, Sam? To tell you the truth, I'm not even sure myself. I might need you to count them for me. You ready?"

//////////

Lucifer does not require his corporeal presence. Sure, it's fun to slowly pull the soul out of it, but there are a finite number of screams one can harvest before the throat is simply a bloody pulp incapable of making noise, and putting it back together is tedious. Lucifer is eager to move on to other types of entertainment, and he doesn't need a physical victim to cause physical pain, so the body has been discarded for a while. So Sam doesn't notice when his body is gone, but Lucifer does. He enjoys showing Sam what it's doing topside. His particular favorite is watching it let Dean become a vampire. He plays that over and over for Sam. Sam doesn't believe it's really happening - even without a soul, surely his body would rebel against that, from instinct alone - but then, Sam doesn't know how to tell what's real.

//////////

Sam's been out for a year. He and Dean are hunting together, really clicking again. Things are so close to normal - well, normal for them - that he allows himself to feel something close to happy. Looking back, he knows that should have been his warning.

When he wakes with a start to see Dean pinned to the ceiling, he believes it's really happening at first, and he screams in horror and despair. Then he feels reality slipping away and realizes it's simply the end of the game, and a sense of relief washes over him. Dean isn't here, bleeding on the ceiling. He's somewhere else, somewhere real. He's okay. As the flames blossom, Sam closes his eyes and waits for the fall.

He should have known. Being happy is a bad sign. Lucifer likes for him to be happy right before he pulls the rug out from under him.

//////////

"Why are you so sure Dean even wants you back?" Lucifer asks.

Because I know, Sam thinks. Because as long as I'm me, and Dean is Dean, he will want me back.

//////////

Sam wakes up in some kind of large building, a warehouse. It's dark and cold and empty, but as his eyes adjust to the darkness, he sees sigils painted on the walls and floor. Some are familiar, most are not, but the ones he recognizes are summoning sigils.

(This probably isn't real, but it could be, oh God, it could be.)

He hears a familiar voice say his name, and turns to see a familiar face. "Bobby?" Sam says, his face twisted in confusion. Is it really Bobby? How is he here? "Am I... am I in Heaven?" he asks. "Or are you in Hell?"

Bobby laughs and yanks Sam to his feet. "Neither, kid! We're both on earth!" He wraps Sam in a bear hug. "It worked!" He pulls back, holds Sam at an arm's length, pats him as if to make sure he's real. (That doesn't work, Bobby. Don't trust it.) "Look at you," he crows, "you're here! He did it!"

(He did it? What does that mean? Oh, fuck.) "What do you mean, Bobby? What worked? What did he do?" (Oh, fuck fuck fuck.)

"Dean did it!" Bobby laughs. "He found a ritual to bring someone back to earth! He practiced on me and then he said he was going after you. He said he was going to bring you back, like he brought me back."

(Oh, Jesus, no.) "So where is he, Bobby?"

Bobby's face switches from joyful to concerned as quickly as if someone flipped a switch, and Sam has a cold dark feeling in the pit of his stomach. "You didn't see him? He went to Hell, Sam. To get you out. He wasn't with you? He didn't make it out?"

Don't over-examine it, he thinks. Just accept it. It could be real. And if it's real, you get to stay here, and you can figure out a way to rescue Dean.

There's a fine line between a life that sucks enough to be your real life, and a life that sucks so much that it could only be a plot spun in Lucifer's head. Sam has to face it - that line has been crossed. "No," he says. "This isn't real." He steps back, closes his eyes, and the world falls away.

"Oh, come on," says Lucifer. "You've got to admit, that sounds like something Dean would do."

//////////

"You realize Dean already thinks you're out of Hell, right? I mean, there's no reason for him to try to rescue you. And yet you fall for it every time anyway. I'm worried about you, Sammy. There's optimistic, and then there's batshit crazy, and I think you've achieved batshit crazy."

Lucifer pauses, waits for a response.

"What, you're not speaking to me now? You know I hate that, Sam."

He sighs.

"Stop squirming, dammit. Now I'm going to have to start over."

//////////

Sam comes back into his body with a gasp. He is all alone, lying on the the grass in Stull Cemetery. He's never been alone before, and he wonders if it's significant. (Don't think about it. Just accept it.) He walks into town, steals a car, and when it runs out of gas, steals another one, until he finally finds himself outside Lisa Braeden's house.

At least he hopes it's still Lisa's house. There's no sign of the Impala. I can't exactly go knock on the door, he thinks, examining himself in the rearview mirror. His clothing is torn and bloody, his eyes look like a pair of bruises in his gaunt, pale face. He looks like a heroin addict. He looks like a crime victim. He looks... well, he looks like he just walked out of Hell, and anyone other than Dean who opens that door is going to lose their everloving shit if they find him on their doorstep. So he finds a vantage point and he waits, hoping against hope to see the Impala pull into the driveway. Night falls and the house remains dark, apparently empty. In the morning, he crawls back into the stolen car and points it toward Sioux Falls.

Sam pulls into Bobby's salvage yard and his heart skips a beat when he sees the familiar shape of the Impala parked in front of the house. He slowly extricates himself from the tiny car - his joints are stiff, his muscles ache, and he is hungry and dehydrated. But his entire body comes alive, surging with adrenaline and hope, when he hears the unmistakeable click of a safety being released behind him and an equally unmistakeable voice growls "Don't move. Move and you're dead."

Sam moves. He wheels around and there is Dean, no more than ten feet away from him, gun pointed at his forehead. Sam steps toward him eagerly. "I told you not to move!" Dean yells, clenching his left hand in a fist. Not lowering the gun. Sam opens his mouth, but whatever he was going to say is lost as the handle of the gun connects with his temple and the world disappears in a flash of pain.

Sam wakes up to throbbing in his head and a vague feeling of something gone very, very wrong. He pries his eyes open and sees Dean perched on the hood of a car, staring at him with murder in his eyes. (Dean, fuck, he thinks I'm Lucifer.) "Dean, it's me," Sam says. They are the first words he's spoken since he found himself lying in the cemetery, and his voice is weak and hoarse. "I'm back. I got out. You... you didn't do it?" (Please, Dean. It's me.)

"Do what? Get you out?" his brother growls. "No, I didn't get you out. Why are you here?"

Sam opens his mouth, shuts it again, confused. (Where else would I be?) "I went to Cicero, to Lisa's," he stammers. "You weren't there."

Dean looks away. "No, I sure as shit wasn't," he says, with a humorless chuckle. "You know why? She couldn't handle it. She couldn't handle my life, my history, the way evil fucking follows me where ever I go. So I left, gave her some time, and we were just talking about getting back together again. Until she calls me in a panic because she sees the fucking Devil skulking around outside her house, and now she's done! It's all over."

"The Devil?" Sam says. "It's just me. He's gone." He tries to stand up, but only makes it to his knees.

"Gone?" Dean spits "He's right here in front of me."

Sam's heart sinks. He doesn't know any way to prove he's not harboring an archangel. "Dammit, Dean!" he cries, still on his knees, unable to move, unable to think. "It's me! I'm not Lucifer! I'm just Sam!"

"You say that like there's a difference!" Dean shouts. "It doesn't matter! You're the one who let him in. You're the one who said you could control him. It was your hands that made Cas explode, and your hands that twisted Bobby's neck, and I can't even look at you without - shit!" Dean rubs his hand down his face. "The last time I saw you," he says, voice shaking with fury, "your hands had just killed the only family I had left, and your hands were beating me to death. So I'm sorry if I can't give you a big ol' hug right now. I'm sorry if I can't welcome you with open arms. You and him are one and the same, Sam. You were bred for him."

"No, Dean, please..." Sam whispers. He has seen anger in Dean's eyes before, murderous anger, and betrayal and hurt. But now he sees hate in his brother's eyes, hate directed at him, and he has lost the ability to breathe.

"I've had a lot of time to think about this," says Dean, and now his voice is calm and cold. "I lost everyone I ever loved because of you. Mom and Dad would still be alive if you had never been born. Everything bad that's ever happened to me? This sorry fucking excuse for a life? The fact that I'm alone now and I'll be dead before I'm 40? It's all because of you. The stupidest thing I ever did was make a deal to bring you back, just because I felt guilty about you getting killed on my watch."

And Sam can't argue, because it's true. (Everything that happened to you is because of me.) "You're right," he says quietly, still kneeling before his brother. "You should have let me die."

"Yeah, well, better late than never." Dean raises the gun again, points it at Sam's forehead. "Go to Hell, Sam," he says.

Just before he fires, Sam gets it. "No, it's okay," he says, with a bitter little laugh. "I'm still there."

//////////

Sam wakes up in Bobby's panic room. The last thing he remembers is falling into the earth, but when Castiel mentions that he spent a year walking around without a soul, his first thought is "Oh, right." It's a fleeting thought and it's quickly replaced with confusion, dread, and guilt. But it was there.

Later, much later, Sam wakes up in Bobby's panic room again and this time he feels Hell inside him. He remembers everything, and he doesn't know if he's really out or if he's back in Lucifer's game. But he does know that he'd rather not find out. And when he starts seeing through the cracks, he tries not to think about it.

//////////

"You know he's not real, right?" says Dean. Sam just stares at him, uncomprehending. First of all, Dean's the one who should understand why it doesn't matter. Lucifer is still in Sam's head. He still knows what Sam wants, what Sam fears, who Sam loves. He still uses it all against him. What difference does it make if he's a hallucination? The pain is still real, whether it's physical or emotional, whether he's topside or in Hell.

But more importantly... no, he doesn't know. He doesn't know who's real and who's an illusion right now, and he's afraid to find out. He knows he's seeing through the cracks, and he knows Dean thinks that means he's seeing illusions of Hell. But Sam isn't sure Dean's right about which is real and which is illusion. (Don't think about it.) All he really knows is that Lucifer enjoys the long game.

//////////

Sam stands in the smoke of Bobby's funeral pyre. It burns his eyes, but he doesn't move. It feels right to suffer through this. It feels like what he's supposed to be doing. Like what he'd be doing if he were really alive.

Lucifer peers at him from the other side of the flames. "Looks familiar, doesn't it? he smiles. "You. Me. Flames. What do you think - are you really out? Or are we just having fun? Who can we toss on the barbeque next? You? Dean?"

"Shut up," mutters Sam. (Don't think about it.)

"What?" says Dean, snapping out of his glassy eyed, thousand-yard stare. Dean, who stole his soul back from Hell. Dean, who is suffering and doesn't deserve to be pulled into Sam's crazy. Dean, who is absolutely real.

(Probably.)

"Nothing," mumbles Sam. "Sorry." He moves away from the smoke and tries not to think about it.

//////////

Sam watches Lucifer run his blade across a whetstone. You're doing it wrong, Sam thinks. You're not making it sharper; you're making it dull. Lucifer raises an eyebrow and smirks. Oh.

He turns his head and sees Dean asleep in the other bed. (Dean is real. Dean is stone number one. Look at Dean, trust in Dean.)

"Sure, he's real," laughs Lucifer. "Only one of us can be real, so it's got to be Dean, right?" He drags the dull blade across Sam's throat, tearing skin and flesh. Blood drips down Sam's neck, feeling warm and wet and oh so real. "Go ahead and scream. That will wake big brother up. If he's real, that is. You willing to find out?"

Sam is not. He grits his teeth and writhes silently as Lucifer works the blade, clutching the sheets with bloody fists, because if he screams and Dean doesn't wake up, he'll know. And he's not ready to know.

//////////

This is it, Sam thinks, when he finds himself completely and utterly alone. It's finally too bad to be real. This can't really be happening. He closes his eyes and waits for the fall, but it doesn't come. Confused, he finds the Impala and starts driving. Somewhere. Anywhere. It doesn't matter, because soon he'll be back in Hell.

Maybe he already is.

(Don't think about it.)

//////////

Life with Amelia is mostly good. Good enough to give him time, let his broken heart and his broken mind heal. Not so good that it can't possibly be real. Sam still feels like he's in limbo, floating between reality and hallucination, but limbo is often better than the alternative. And yeah, sometimes he realizes a month has gone by and he can't remember any of it. And when Amelia surprises him with a picnic and a cake on his birthday, it forces him to remember that it's been a year since he saw Dean. A year that seems hazy and lost. But Sam is lost, so that makes sense, right? (It could still be real, couldn't it?)

"Why so many Amelias?" she asks one night. "You ever wonder about that?"

"Hmm? What do you mean?" he says, sleepy and confused. Her head is on his shoulder; he can't see her face.

"I mean, Jimmy Novak's wife was named Amelia. Gabriel, when he was pretending to be the Trickster pretending to be a businessman, his wife was named Amelia. And your little buddy the monster, she took the name Amy Pond, and you know that's short for Amelia. And then there's me. What's up with that?"

"What? What?" Sam feels as if he is stumbling toward a cliff. His gut lurches. "How - how do you even know about Jimmy Novak?"

"Seriously, Sam?" she chuckles. "That's your takeaway from this conversation? How do I know about Jimmy Novak? That's what jumps out at you?"

"What the hell, Amelia?" Closer, closer to the cliff. He'll plunge off the edge soon. "What are you talking about? How do you know all this?" (No, wait, don't tell me.)

"Nothing," she yawns. "I'm just saying, have you ever wondered why there are so many Amelias? Doesn't it make you wonder? If we're all real?" She snuggles deeper into his shoulder. "Never mind. You're probably just having a bad dream. Go back to sleep."

Maybe he is. Her head is still on his shoulder, his arm wrapped around her.

In the morning, he manages not to think about it.

//////////

You can't really explain to the most important person in your life that you didn't look for him because you weren't sure he was real. That you were afraid if you looked, you'd find out he was simply a hallucination birthed by the devil himself. How do you apologize for that, other than offering to die for him? Isn't that the ultimate way to prove you believe he's real?

But what if he won't let you? What if he asks you to live instead, and you're not sure that either of you is really alive?

//////////

Something is wrong. Sam knows it's safer not to think about it, not to try to pull it apart or piece it together. He tries to ignore Dean's peculiar behavior, Castiel's absence, his own fuzzy memories and loss of time. Questions are dangerous - they lead to answers. But sometimes he can't help it. Sometimes Dean says something that prompts a long-forgotten memory, or sounds like the end of a conversation that Sam doesn't remember beginning. (Sometimes Dean acts like he's not Dean. Or like I'm not Sam.) Sam tries not to think about it, and he's usually successful. But when he does follow his thoughts down that rabbit hole, they slip through his hands, and he can't remember what he was concerned about. Only that something is very wrong. (Don't think about it. Don't make it real.)

//////////

Kevin sits at the library table, surrounded by pages torn from legal pads. Sam tries to read Kevin's notes, but the letters dance and squirm like insects. (They couldn't do that if they were real.) Suddenly Kevin looks up and says "Sam, you know I'm a prophet, right?"

Sam stares into his dark eyes and can't read anything there - friendship or threat. "Yeah, of course. Why?"

Kevin stares at him like he made a joke and he's waiting for Sam to get it. "Haven't you ever wanted to flip to the last page of the book? Find out what's going to happen?"

"No." (No no fuck no.) Sam laughs nervously. "I don't even want to live through it once, let alone hear about it first." (Please don't tell me.)

Kevin nods, smiles sadly. "Yeah, that's probably for the best."

Sam stumbles out of the room and leans his forehead against the cold stone wall, tries to pin down reality. (This is real. This wall is real. Kevin is real. I am real.) Minutes later, or maybe hours, he finds himself back in the library, though he doesn't remember how or why.

"Kevin?" (No, don't do it. Don't ask him don't ask him.) "Why did you say that? Why did you ask if I want to know what happens?" (Please don't tell me.)

Kevin looks up in confusion. "What? What are you talking about?" His eyes narrow and Sam squirms uncomfortably under his scrutiny, wondering why this scrawny teenager makes him so nervous. (Teenage prophet of the Lord. He knows things. Things I probably ought to know. Things I am avoiding.) Then Kevin smiles, and his voice is kind and soft. "Bad dream, maybe?"

"Yeah," stammers Sam. "Bad dream."

(Maybe.)

//////////

Sam groans under the weight of the dead demon. "Dean?" he gasps. "A little help?" But Dean doesn't respond. With arms trembling from exertion and blood loss, he manages to heave the body off to one side. Yanking the demon blade from its abdomen, he tries to stand, but the world spins violently and suddenly he's on his knees. When he sees Dean's crumpled form across the room, he can only crawl to him. He's on his side, eyes closed, blood puddling beneath him. (Shit shit shit Dean please be okay.) Sam rolls him onto his back and gasps - blood is pumping from a deep wound in his brother's chest. He checks for a pulse and finds it, but just barely. When he draws his hand back from Dean's neck it is slick with fresh blood. So much blood. (Fuck, I can't do this, I don't know what to do, don't do this to me, don't you dare fucking do this to me.) "Dean?" he says, pressing on the wound. "It's okay. I'm here." With his other hand, he fumbles for his phone. "I'm going to get help. Hang on."

Dean's eyes open slightly and he draws a labored breath. "Zeke," he whispers.

"No, it's me," Sam says. "It's Sam. I'm here. I'm not leaving you." But the name Zeke triggers one of those half-memories. This isn't just the hallucination of a dying man. This is something important. (Don't think about it.)

Dean's eyes bore into Sam's. "Zeke," he repeats weakly. Then his eyes lose focus and he goes limp, and this time when Sam reaches for his bloody neck, it is still.

"Oh God, Dean, don't," he sobs, "please don't." And as Sam's world goes black, he thinks this is it, I'm finally out of this one, and the one good thing about going back to Hell is that it means he didn't really kneel there in a pool of his brother's blood and watch him die.

But there is no Lucifer. There is no chill breath, no taunting laugh, no jeering welcome back to the rack. There are hands shaking him awake, and an impossible voice yelling his name. And when he pries his eyes open, the face matches the voice, and Sam can't breathe. "Dean?" he says.

Dean pulls him into a sitting position with hands that are sticky with drying blood. Sam paws at his brother's chest. His shirt is torn and bloodstained, but his skin is unbroken. "Dean? What happened? You were dead! Jesus fuck, Dean, you were DEAD! What happened? What did you do?" (Oh, God, what did you do, what is it going to cost this time?)

Dean's face drips with guilt and his voice cracks when he says "Sam, I'm sorry, I have to tell you the truth." (No, no, never mind, don't tell me, I don't want to know.) But then Sam's on his feet, though he doesn't remember how he got there, and Dean is shaking him, eyes probing into his, calling him. "Sam? Sam! You in there? Do you hear me?"

Sam takes a shaky breath and tries to get his bearings. Dean looks away quickly, as if he doesn't want to look him in the eyes. (Whatever you were going to tell me, I don't want to know.) "Can we just go home?" Sam says quietly. He feels broken. He feels wrong. He feels unreal.

"Yeah, Sammy," Dean says, still unable to look him in the eyes. "Let's go home."

Title is from "Before I Forget" by Slipknot

Stapled shut, inside an outside world and I'm
Sealed in tight, bizarre but right at home
Claustrophobic, closing in and I'm
Catastrophic, not again