topaz119 | Dream On, 2/2

Part One || Part Two

Back in the day, Dean could have made the 700 or so miles through to New York in one long push. If he had anyone to switch off driving, they could make it in ten or eleven hours. Nine, if it was summer and his dad on the other shift.

He wasn't counting on anything like that now, though from everything he could tell the real damage from Lucifer had happened further west. He nearly flipped a coin about which route to take, but finally decided to go with I-70. It shaded a little bit further south through Pennsylvania, and he figured south was better, what with not having any idea what the weather was going to do. The first couple of hours were okay, and he was making good time, but somewhere in Ohio he caught sight in the rearview mirror of a low bank of clouds, dark and turbulent, like a cloud of demons. He watched it blow up behind him, gaining on him steadily, until the first sharp ping of hail sounded on the roof. He drove a little further, but the hail got bigger and the darkest part of the cloud was still coming, so he pulled off under an overpass and let the worst of it blow through. He sat there, the car comfortable and familiar around him while the full fury of the storm howled outside, and finally admitted he didn't have the first fucking clue what he was doing.

Chasing after a dream--even one as vivid as this--was nuts, and that was before you added in the whole part about it fitting so neatly with everything he couldn't even bring himself to hope for. Every demon out there with an axe to grind against the Winchesters--and hell, every angel, too--had to know it'd be the perfect bait to draw Dean out. Dean didn't want to think about what Bobby would have to say about it.

Not that any of that mattered, of course. Dean was going anyway. But he was going to try to take it at something other than a bull-headed rush, even if he didn't have much of a plan other than find the steps and wait for Sam. The hail eased off after a little while, but not before it completely covered the highway; the rains that followed were heavy, with pretty fucking spectacular lightning to go along with it all. Dean ended up spending almost an hour under cover, and then drove through the shredded countryside, following in the wake of the storm until he hit Pennsylvania. It wasn't quite dark, but he stopped anyway, at a little motor court right off the exit. There was a bait and tackle shop near it that sold sandwiches and chips; Dean got himself a roast beef and cheddar and a bottle of water, and settled in for the night.

The weather had stayed clear enough that opening the window in the tiny bathroom wasn't a bad idea. The window faced the back, away from the road; the night sounds of the mostly wooded lot filtered in to the rest of the room along with air that smelled fresh and clean. The kid at the front desk had shrugged when Dean had asked about TV and radio, but Dean had pretty much expected that and just lay down under the scratchy sheets once he finished eating.

He expected the dream, too. It was sharper, more defined, but still the same basics, Sam and the steps and a book, and Dean came awake muttering, "Boring, Sammy. Very, very boring."

He fumbled around and found a pen, and wrote everything he could remember on a random blank page in the journal, like it was any other case and he needed to get as much information as possible down before it slipped away. Sam never acknowledged anyone, never spoke or even made eye contact. From the shadows and the general look of the people who were there in the background, Dean was guessing it was late afternoon. He hadn't actually thought about it before, but the light and shade were always like that. Sam looked relatively healthy and sane; Dean thought that ruled out most of the angels and demons carrying a grudge--they surely would have put Sam in danger if they really wanted him to get moving. Instead, Dean was getting Technicolor pictures of Sam sitting and reading; and somewhere along the way, Dean had gotten enough equilibrium back that he didn't automatically think being sort of grateful for the normality of the scene was an invitation for disaster.

It was still pretty boring, though.

The weather held throughout the night and into the morning; the bait shop was open for the early morning crowd hitting the river. Dean hadn't expected much, maybe stale donuts or even a ham sandwich left over from the day before, but the woman who owned the place was making breakfast burritos, with real eggs and honest-to-God bacon. Dean's taste buds nearly fell over in shock and awe. He hadn't given a damn what he was eating for a long time, and he sure as hell wasn't going to be picky about whatever Lisa was putting in front of him, but it'd been a long time, and his body had apparently been in some kind of bacon withdrawal to judge from holyfuckYES that he all but moaned at the first bite.

He ate one entire burrito standing in line waiting to pay, burning his mouth on the hot bacon and cheese, and ended up getting another one for the road. That one, he took his time with, eating one handed and chasing every bite with the industrial strength coffee he'd added to his order. The sun was out, the sky was clear, the Impala was purring under his hands. Dean wasn't at all surprised that everything went downhill from there.

The roads were crap, which seriously messed with his goal of getting across the damn state before he stopped, and when he gave up on that idea and started looking for someplace to fill up and maybe find some food, he ended up ten miles off the interstate, passing one closed-down place after another. In the end, he used some of the gas he'd stockpiled, and settled for a couple of the beef jerkies to keep him going. After the awesome start to the day, it was fairly unimpressive, but not a disaster.

The rest of the day carried on the same way: bad roads, like the DOT hadn't gotten around to filling the potholes left over from the extended winter, and place after place boarded-up and closed. The only good thing was that when Dean finally did stop, and asked about everything, asking without asking about any weird shit that might have happened, the old guy behind the check-in desk went off on a monologue that blamed everyone from the thieving bastards at the county offices on up to them jerks in Washington, but nothing that he said--and goddamn, he just would not shut up--pinged Dean's radar. Maybe the weather was still screwed up from Lucifer but everything else was looking to be collateral damage from the economy.

Dean left the guy still mumbling and muttering and went to find his room. He managed to get a shower and about an hour of bad reception on the TV, including some local news that confirmed what the old guy had said. Nothing more than the never-ending recession and Wall Street tricks at work. He flipped off the TV and crashed out for the night, lying awake for a long time wondering if the dream would come again.

He woke right before dawn with no memory of having seen Sam and hit the road, swallowing down the disappointment and determined to make it to Manhattan before another night passed. He had no idea how often Sam went by the library, or, hell, if this was even real, but he was tired of only getting glimpses. If he got there and didn't find anything and it was all nothing more than part of his fucked-up brain, well, then he'd deal with that. But first he wanted to see for himself.

At least he couldn't brood about it much--not that that was what he was doing, brooding was way more Sam's thing--not what with how he had to pay attention to where he was driving. He had no desire to miss an exit or a bridge or whatever the hell else New York had in store for him and blow his chance at catching Sam for the day.

Manhattan looked… okay. Dean hadn't ever spent a lot of time there; he had no idea what was baseline, but there were a shit-ton of people out, walking, gawking, buying stuff, and that was generally a good sign, at least in Dean's book. He only got lost once--one-way streets sucked--and then it took him a good hour to find someplace to park the car. He wasn't thinking about how much it cost, either. After all that, it was starting to get to the point that Dean wanted to be there, settle himself at the base of the statues he'd seen a dozen times in his dreams and find out just how fucking crazy he really was. He grabbed a handful of jerky and his EMT-meter and set off to find his way back on foot.

He knew he should be paying attention to his surroundings--that was Rule Number One of taking on unknown things and making it back out alive, or at least breathing--but it was like the dream. Everything around him, the people, the buildings, the taxis and their never-quiet horns, all faded into the background. He came up on the building from the rear; it was a long, long walk to get up to the front and around the corner to the steps. He told himself to settle down, keep cool, but as soon as he saw the lions, exactly the same as in the dreams, he broke into a jog, like Sam was going to be there waiting for him.

He wasn't, of course.

Dean circled around the statues, first the one on the right, then the left, and then stopped himself from doing it again. He leaned against the stone base and got a grip. He made himself think of every time he'd seen this place, thought about the angles and the way the sun slanted along the street, along the concrete and on the building and decided he should be staking out the cat on the right. He'd keep an eye on them both, but he was going to sit his ass down and lean against the right-hand statue and wait until the damn library closed, if he had to.

He compromised with the nervous energy ricocheting through his body and stood rather than sat, but otherwise he followed the plan, lame as it was. People went by steadily, on the steps and sidewalk; the shadows crept closer. Waiting around was never Dean's favorite part of anything, equal parts boring and nerve-wracking. He'd done it all his life, it seemed--waiting for Dad to get home, for the moon to be full, for Castiel to show, for Lucifer to make his move. He'd never actually gotten used to it, or gotten very good at it, but he hung on grimly through the afternoon, until the sun was blocked by the other buildings and it'd be too dark for Sam to do his standard show-up-and-read. Right when Dean was telling himself the day was shot, though, that he needed to give it up for the day and go figure out someplace to stay, a final group came out of the big doors at the top of the steps and Dean was face-to-face with Sam.

Dean froze, and with the tiny part of his brain still working listened for the scream of the EMT meter. It was silent, though, and the rest of the world trickled back in as Sam stared back at him, standing close enough that Dean could see the flecks of green in his eyes. The moment stretched out, on and on, neither one of them moving--hell, Dean wasn't sure either of them was breathing--until Sam reached out and grabbed Dean's shirt, shoving him back against the stone behind him and snarling, "Who are you?"

Dean gaped at him, and Sam's hands tightened in the cloth. "What do you want with me?" He shook Dean once, which was about enough of that. Dean twisted left and broke Sam's grip on him, turning back in time to see him ready to bolt.

"Sam--" Dean started, and took a step back at the hunted, haunted look in Sam's eyes. "Whoa, whoa, Sammy, it's--"

Sam choked out a laugh that sounded more like cut glass and sat on the steps, going down as though his legs wouldn't hold him up any more. Dean watched for a second, then sat next to him. Whatever the fuck was going on, it wasn't like he was going to leave, not now.

Sam reached out slowly--Dean wasn't getting any crazy vibes off him, so he didn't duck, just sat and waited--and touched Dean's face, ran his thumb over Dean's cheekbone and down along his jaw. Dean had a quick flash of how much damage Sam could do, and how stupid it was for Dean to let him anywhere close to his throat, let alone his eye, but Sam didn't do anything, only took a shaky breath and dropped his hand back in his lap.

"You're real," Sam said, after a couple of seconds. Dean wanted to say that of course he was real--he wasn't the one who'd taken a dive into Hell this time, but Sam was still talking. "I dream about you every night, and I don't--I don't know--"

"Easy," Dean said, and took a shaky breath of his own, because he'd thought of a lot of bad shit, but this scenario hadn't even begun to occur to him. "If it helps, I dream about you every night, too."

Sam's head jerked up at that. "Why?" he demanded, and there was fear under the frustration, Dean could hear it plain as day, and he maybe reacted to it a little too strongly.

"Why?" he snapped. "Why the hell do you think?"

"I don't know," Sam bit off, in full-on bitch mode. "I don't know anything. I don't know you. Hell," he said, standing up. "I don't know me." He rubbed one hand over his face, and it was so familiar to Dean, so Sam it hurt to see. "Look, I have to go, get to work. Sorry about slamming you into the wall."

"Damn it, Sam," Dean said, jumping up and making a grab for him. Sam's arm was solid and strong under his hand, tense, one shrug away from a punch.

"Sam," Sam said, laughing again. It didn't sound any better than it had before, but at least he wasn't walking away. "Yeah, that's what I tell people to call me. You want to know why?"

"Because it's your name?"

"Is it?" Sam shrugged. "People want to know what to call you. It starts freaking them out if they can't put a name with the face after awhile, and I--didn't know. But every night, I'd go to sleep and dream and you'd call me Sam. So I figured, why not? It's as good a name as any, right?"

Dean reached up--slowly, because he didn't want to lose an arm, thanks--and turned Sam's face back toward him. Sam let him, all of the fight draining out of him at the touch of Dean's hand. He met Dean's eyes, and shrugged again, sort of rueful, sort of helpless, but not scamming Dean. Dean would bet anything on that, which meant that the Winchester luck was running true. Dean would still take this over having Sam in Hell, though. In a heartbeat. He just had to hang on to Sam until they could figure shit out.

"I really do have to go," Sam said. "They'll fire my ass in a heartbeat and I need the money." It was pretty clear that he expected Dean to let him go--and that he'd be happy to force the issue if he had to--but then he added, "You could--it's a dive, but if you wanted to come--"

"Yeah," Dean said, relief flooding through him. "I do."

He let go then, and Sam slung his backpack over one shoulder, heading down the steps and across the street to more stairs leading down to the subway. Dean fumbled with the money he needed for the metrocard, but Sam waited for him. It was crowded and noisy on the train, but they found a couple of straps to hold onto, Sam nudging him when it was time to get off.

"It's nothing great," Sam said, as he wove through the people on the sidewalk. "They pay me in cash, though."

"Never a bad thing," Dean said, and Sam nodded.

The place Sam finally took them into was actually classier than Dean expected, but it was still a dive strip club. Sam took him in through the kitchen, nodding to a couple of the guys washing dishes and prepping stuff, and then ducked into a tiny room lined with lockers. He pulled a padlock out of his backpack before he stripped off the loose, long-sleeved overshirt he wore, stuffing it and the pack in a locker. The t-shirt he still had on was black, but tight; as far as Dean could tell, he hadn't lost any weight or muscle mass, which at least meant he was taking care of himself even if they were dealing with some freaky amnesia B.S.

"I started off washing dishes," Sam said, picking up a Louisville Slugger that was leaning against the wall and leading Dean back through the kitchen and out into the front of the club. "But… I can handle myself in a fight, so they stuck me out here."

'Out here' was behind a pretty basic bar--couple of beers on tap and as sad a collection of bottles as Dean had seen in a while. Sam propped the bat next to the small sink and watched Dean take it all in with an expression that was more than a little defensive, as though he was waiting for Dean to run him down. And yeah, it was nothing great, but truth be told, Dean had put in time at worse places, and that was knowing who the hell he was to start with, so he just smiled.

"Yeah," he said, ducking under the bar and taking the last stool at the end, where he had the wall at one shoulder. "You can handle yourself just fine in a fight. Wouldn't want anybody else on my six."

Sam rolled his eyes--some things never changed, Dean guessed--and went to get set up for his shift, making sure the dude getting off was square with the books and wasn't leaving Sam holding the bag. Dean approved; you could never be too careful, and it was good Sam knew that, too. Dean sprang for a beer--out of a bottle, thanks, because he'd seen the dishwashing set-up in the back and it was pretty clear that the money in this joint went to paying off health inspectors rather than investing in anything that'd actually get the glasses clean--and settled in to keeping an eye on Sam.

Sam pulled beers and handed out shots, everything pretty quiet, at least for a strip joint where the bass lines were loud enough that Dean could feel them. Other than acknowledging orders and nodding thanks for tips, Sam didn't engage with anyone unless they were on the way to being trouble, and then it was nothing more than a flat, even stare that said the muscles and the bat weren't for show and it would really piss Sam off to have to prove it. Even the blotto ones managed to interpret it correctly, at least until one moron, the kind who thought wearing a suit and flashing some cash meant that he was special, kept right on going, pawing at the waitresses. Sam leaned over the bar casually, hooking one long arm around the moron's neck and dragging him back hard against the edge, hard enough that Dean almost winced in sympathy.

"No touching," Sam said, the muscles in his arm tightening against the guy's throat. Sam held him there long enough that any normal idiot would have been happy to still be breathing once he got let go, but this guy was a real charmer. Even with a bouncer on his way over from the door, as soon as Sam eased back, Dipshit staggered around and pulled a switchblade out from under his nice, fancy suit.

"Sam," Dean called, already on his feet and moving. "Knife, watch it, watch it--" Sam dodged back out of the way of the first wild slash, and Dean got there before the guy could try again, jamming a knee hard up into his back and shoving him face first onto the bar. Sam slammed the bat down a half-second later, shattering a glass not all that far from the guy's face. There wasn’t any blood, so Dean didn’t guess the guy had lost an eye, but he’d be picking glass shards out of his hair for a week.

"Show me the blade," Sam growled, soft and dangerous, pushing the bat against the guy’s face. "Show it to me." Dipshit couldn't get the knife up on the bar fast enough; Dean didn't blame him--the hair on the back of Dean's neck was nearly standing on end and Sam wasn't even talking to him. The bouncer--who had a couple of inches and probably fifty pounds on Sam--finally made it over, and Dean was more than happy to let go and step back.

"Nice," the bouncer said, pulling the guy up by his hair. "I was startin' to get bored." He manhandled the guy over toward the door, turning back to ask Sam, "You want to press charges?"

"Nah," Sam answered, raking his hair back off his face. "He didn't touch me. Just, uh, don't let him in again?"

"Yeah," the bouncer said, grinning as he shoved the guy out the door, making sure his head clipped the frame. "I might provide a little positive reinforcement on that idea."

Dean shook his head; when he turned back, Sam was watching him again. "I told you it was a dive," Sam said, and Dean shrugged. "Thanks," Sam added. "First time I've had somebody covering my back here."

"Anytime." Dean thought he sounded casual enough, like the thought of Sam having to deal by himself wasn't making him want to grab the bat Sam still held and do a little damage of his own. He eased back onto his bar stool and gestured toward the cooler. "If batting practice is over, I could use another Bud."

Sam snorted and tossed the bat back in its corner. "On the house," he said, sliding the longneck down to Dean, and the night went back to being boring.

* * *

Sam got off at three in the morning; the place was never packed but it had steady business through the night with a lot of turnover. Dean had watched Sam pull in solid money in tips, plus whatever was in the envelope the guy who ran the place handed off as Sam finished up. Sam didn't say anything, but he didn't object to Dean following him back through to the break room, which was good because Dean didn't think he could let Sam go and he wasn't in the mood to fight about it. He stood around while Sam collected his stuff and shrugged when Sam asked him if he wanted anything to eat.

"As long as it's somewhere else," Dean said, since it was only them in the break room. "Nothing personal, but, dude. Please tell me you don't eat here."

"Once," Sam answered, with a hint of a smile. "But it was an extreme situation. After that, I started keeping an emergency stash in here." He lifted the backpack.

"You always were the smart one," Dean said, without thinking, and then felt like beating his head against the wall at how stiff Sam’s shoulders had gone. "Yeah, so we should probably talk about that," Dean sighed.

"Yeah," Sam agreed, but the look on his face was the same he used to shut down the freaks, so Dean wasn't holding out much hope that it was gonna be an easy conversation. Then again, he was having the conversation, which he'd take over Sam being in Hell any day.

Sam took him back out through the alley and down a couple of different streets that all looked more-or-less the same. Dean honestly had no idea where he was, much less how to get back to his car, so he though he should try to focus on not pissing Sam off too much. They finally ended up at small diner, nothing much more than a couple of booths and some stools at a counter, but the guy at the grill greeted Sam like a regular and Dean could see a cake plate with some pastries sitting out a little further down. Maybe they'd have pie.

The back booth was empty, so they slid in there and killed a couple of minutes studying the menu. Or, at least Dean did--Sam just glanced at it, and ordered by number when the waitress came over to take their orders. Dean couldn't help looking back to see what Sam had gotten.

"Souvlaki?" Dean asked. "Really?"

"I don't know what I like," Sam said, still with that shut-down expression. "I'm just going through the menu."

It was so Sam, Dean had to laugh, but--remembering a couple of years worth of stubborn battles between Dad and a Sam who knew exactly what he wanted to eat and was happy to go hungry if that wasn't on the menu--had to add, "How's that working out for you?"

"No liver of any kind is ever going in my mouth again," Sam said, relaxing a little. "But other than that, it's been okay." The waitress circled back with coffee; once she'd left again, Sam took a deep breath and said, very quietly, "So, the dreams."

"Yeah," Dean answered, just as low.

"I've never not had them, not one night." Sam fumbled in his backpack, finally pulling out a small, cheap composition book and pushing it toward Dean. "You're almost always in them, but there are other people, too."

Dean flipped through the notebook, reading quickly. Every other page or so, Sam had the outlines of a dream written down. He didn't know who anyone was or where things had happened, but he'd written out perfect, snapshot descriptions of everything and everyone. Dean recognized hunts mixed in with fishing trips with Pastor Jim when they were kids; descriptions of Bobby's junkyard on one page and Stanford on the next; Jessica and Ruby, Bobby and Dad; and Dean, almost always there somewhere, even if it was only Sam writing that Dean wasn't in a particular dream. Some of them, Sam had had more than once, from the different pens and pencils he'd used to fill in details. Some had only a couple of words under them--vampires?? or cage--while others had pages of notes, things Sam had seen, how he'd felt in the dream, how he'd reacted once he'd woken.

Dean looked up to find Sam watching him, so still Dean didn't think he was breathing.

"Yeah," Dean said. "I don't know all of them, but I remember a lot of them."

"You mean, you remember the dreams--your dreams are the same?" Sam's voice was tight and keyed-up; Dean didn't think the truth was going to help, but he sure as hell wasn't going to start off lying.

"No," Dean said, and he tried to be as low-key as possible, which probably wasn't much, not under the circumstances. "I mean, I remember them. They're not just dreams; they happened."

"Who are you?" Sam asked, again, his voice so rough Dean could barely understand him.

"I'm Dean," he said. "I'm your brother."

* * *

The food arrived before Sam could freak out, which was a bit of good luck that had Dean wanting to look around and see if Cas had maybe zapped in from wherever. Sam kind of shut down after that, but he was eating and letting Dean eat, and for whatever reason neither of them was getting too wound up over the whole messed-up situation. Sam didn't wait for a check, though, only dropped a couple of tens on the table and motioned to Dean to come with him.

It was another silent walk, more streets that Dean had no idea about, more turns and corners and shortcuts, but it wasn't all that long before Sam was opening the deadbolt on a nondescript door between a carniceria and bodega and starting up a flight of narrow, steep steps.

Sam's room was just that: a room. There was a bed shoved into the corner and a tiny bathroom behind a pressboard "wall" in the other corner, bars on the one window and a hotplate sitting on a rickety card table.

"It's cheap," Sam said, breaking the silence.

"I sure as hell hope so," Dean muttered. It was clean, though, everything scrubbed down and the bed made with an almost military precision. And there were books, everywhere. Stacks of them: next to the bed and under the card table and taking up more floor space than Dean would have thought possible.

"For not remembering who you are," Dean said, picking up a book at random and flipping through it, "this is a pretty good start."

Sam sat down on the bed, leaning his forearms on his thighs, eyes down. He looked… not tired, exactly. Worn down, maybe. "There's--it's like flipping a switch, reading about stuff. I know it, but it doesn't occur to me until I read it. So, I started--they're from the trash, some of them. Second-hand stores, friends of the library sale." He looked up and caught Dean's eye. "What you said," Sam said. "Before. That you're my brother--it was the same thing. As soon as you said it, I knew it."

Dean nodded, leaning one shoulder against the wall, keeping a careful eye on Sam, and if he still wasn't happy with the situation, he couldn't deny that something inside him lightened at Sam's words. "Good," he said, smiling. Sam smiled back, and they did the little brotherly bonding thing for longer than Dean was ever going to cop to.

Of course, it being their lives and all, it was more complicated than that.

"Maybe I knew it before you said it," Sam said. "I just--I thought I was dreaming about you because I saw you. Like, the first thing I remember is you, with your family, so I thought, y'know, that was why I kept dreaming about you--"

"Sam--" Dean started, because, wait, what?, but Sam kept going, words spilling out of him like they'd knocked open a hole in a dam, and Dean couldn't even begin to slow it down.

"They were there, too, once or twice, but you. You were always there, and I'd see you driving, or shooting pool, and I just thought, I don't know, you were a familiar face and that's why you were practically living in my head, but then you were a kid, and I knew it was you, and that was weird enough, but then I--I--"

Sam broke off, breathing hard, his voice raw, and Dean didn't want to push him, but he figured they might as well start dealing with whatever of the bad stuff was coming. "You what, man?"

"I saw you die," Sam choked out. "I saw you dead on the floor, torn apart."

"Yeah," Dean sighed, and Sam's head jerked up again, like maybe he'd been expecting Dean to tell him that one really was only a dream. Dean shrugged. "It's… complicated."

"That's it?" Sam demanded, after a few seconds. "All you can say is, 'It's complicated'?"

"What the hell else would you call this?" Dean snapped back, before he got himself under control and said, "Look, it is what it is, but yeah, that was real, too."

"So maybe I should be asking what you are, rather than who you are."

"Yeah," Dean snorted. "Been there, done that." As much as Sam's stubborn-as-a-mule expression still punched Dean's buttons, he was kind of happy to see it, rather than the one where Sam shut down on everything. "Look," Dean said. "You don't remember much, and I gotta tell you, there's probably good reason to let it take its own time coming back."

Sam stared back at him, jaw set.

"Fine. If you really want me to tell you, I will." Dean swallowed hard. "But it is complicated and it will take me hours to get through. And we're gonna need at least a fifth."

"God, I am so sick of not knowing," Sam finally said, low and defeated.

"But you do--you said that when you read stuff, you remember that you know about it, right?" Dean waited until Sam nodded, and then put as much conviction in his voice as he could. "You can't rush this shit--it's better to let your brain figure things out on its own."

Sam shook his head again, and Dean added, maybe a little too honestly, "Don't fight it when it comes, though. You gotta be ready for it, know what you're gonna do when it hits or it'll tear you apart."

"Voice of experience?" Even without his memories, Sam could still zero in on Dean's weak spots with deadly accuracy, but Dean could hold it together well enough these days to hear the compassion under the blunt honesty. He figured he owed Lisa for that, for not kicking his sorry ass out, for letting him hang around long enough that he wasn't one raw nerve.

"Like I said," Dean answered. "It's really fucking complicated."

Sam nodded, and it got quiet for a while before he said, "It helps, though. Knowing there's a reason why I have the most active dream life in the city."

"Good," Dean said.

"What did you dream?" Sam asked. "You said you dreamed about me all the time--but you remember, so…"

"I thought you were gone," Dean said, choosing his words with care. "I--at first it was stuff from when we were kids or the last couple of years, like my brain was trying to figure out how to let you go. After a while, though--I kept seeing you back at the library and that wasn't anything--it hadn't happened."

"I go almost every day. I did even before I started keeping track of everything," Sam said. "That pretty much sums up my life: I dream shit and write it down; go to work; go try and figure out what the hell I was dreaming. Pretty boring if that's all you were seeing every night."

Dean laughed, and if it sounded a little rough, he didn't think Sam would care. "I am not going to argue."

"But you came anyway."

"Chasing a dream," Dean said, and shook his head. "Four states, man, and I don't want to talk about what Pennsylvania did to my baby's suspension."

"I'm sorry this is so fucked-up," Sam said. "I'm sorry you came all this way and I'm not really who--"

"Shut up." Dean couldn't help how much his voice was shaking, and he should care, should be able to hold it together better than he was, but the words came flying out anyway. "Seriously. Shut up. I don't care, I mean, I do, I want you to know who you are but--I thought you were--I had to sit there and watch you--just, shut up, okay?"

Sam nodded, then got up and fiddled with the some books, letting Dean get himself under control.

"It's almost dawn," Sam said, after a bit. "I don't know if there's some place you need to be--"

"Dude," Dean said. "I have no fucking idea where I even am, much less how to get back to where I left the car."

"If you want, you can stay," Sam said in a rush. "I mean, this place is nothing special, and if it's a bad night, I usually end up reading, but it's--it's clean? And I figured out how to make coffee."

"Yeah?" Dean eyed the ancient coffeemaker without much enthusiasm. "I'll believe that when I see it."

"Fine. You make it then."

"I could do that," Dean said.

"Awesome." Sam smiled and Dean figured he'd probably just been conned, but who really cared? When he came out of the bathroom, Sam had pulled a couple of blankets out of a box; one was over the window, blacking out the lights of the city and the rising sun, and he was folding the other one lengthwise to make a pallet. When he made like he was planning on sleeping on it, though, Dean stopped him.

"Nah, man. I've been up for a day straight; I could sleep on a rock if I had to."

Sam hesitated, but went when Dean pushed him toward the bed, stripping off his shirt and turning off the light. Dean hadn't been kidding; he was so tired that he barely made it past stretching out on the doubled-over blanket before he was asleep, but it was long enough that he knew how much he'd missed hearing Sam breathing in the same room.

* * *

The room was dim and shadowy when Dean came awake, his heart pounding with the creepy feeling of someone watching him. The light filtering in around the edges of the blanket was soft and muted, as though it was cloudy outside, and Sam sat next to him on the floor, his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them.

"Sorry," Sam said. "Sorry, sorry, fuck, I'm such a mess."

Dean hauled himself upright, moving slow and cautious, still tired, and asked, "More dreams?"

"Always," Sam said and there was enough light to see the dull frustration in his eyes. "I believe you, I do, I know what you're saying is true, in my gut, I feel it, but I woke up and thought I'd dreamed this, and I had to make sure it was real."

"No problem," Dean told him. "I can't really believe it either, but I think we might have caught a break here." He should be worrying about how Sam got out of Hell, who might have helped him, and what price they were going to demand, but he could do that later.

"Yeah? So what do we do next?"

"Always with the hard questions, Sammy." Dean leaned back on his elbows, stretching out the kinks in his back, like that was going to help an answer pop into his brain. "I don't know, man," he finally admitted. "I'm all ears if you got any brilliant ideas."

Sam stayed curled around himself for a long minute, and then, like he'd come to a decision, unfolded and turned so he could reach under the bed, coming back out with an envelope wrapped and reinforced with duct tape. He held it for a minute before he tossed into Dean's lap. Dean raised an eyebrow, but Sam didn't say anything, so Dean opened it just as silently.

It was filled with cash, mostly twenties and fifties, but a fair number of smaller bills, too, and a smattering of hundreds. Dean whistled, low and long, and looked up at Sam.

"It's pretty much everything I've made," Sam said. "I was going to come find you. That was my brilliant idea. I had no idea who you were, but I was going to come find you and make you tell me why you were in my dreams." Dean stayed quiet, and Sam half-laughed, half-sighed. "Of course, if I'd just stayed there in the first place, I wouldn't have had to have gone looking for you at all."

"Sammy--"

"The first thing I remember, I mean, really remember, not whatever dream's standing in for remembering, is being outside a house. You were in it, I could see you, but I don't know, I just stood there until this bunch of guys came by, like a neighborhood watch and they didn't like me being there, especially when I couldn't tell them anything."

"Fuck," Dean bit out. "Morons. I knew I should have taken them down when I had the chance."

"They were okay about it--nobody tried to rough me up or anything--but they weren't taking no for an answer." Sam shrugged. "I could have taken them, I think I knew it even then, but I--man, I had nothing in my head. Nothing."

Dean sighed. "I know it's gotta suck, not knowing anything, but I'm sticking with how it's probably better to let it come back on its own."

"Yeah, well, I guess it started that night. They stuck me on the first bus out of town and I slept a little and dreamed about you." Sam shifted a little, his fingers bunching and smoothing the cloth of his jeans. "I stayed on the bus 'til the driver told me it was the end of the line." Unexpectedly, he grinned. "Couple of blocks from Times Square and I gotta tell you, that's a hell of a first thing to recognize."

"New York, New York," Dean said, forcing his voice to a lightness he didn't entirely feel, but he didn't think Sam needed to deal with Dean's overwhelming desire to go kick the shit out of some Indiana yokels. "It's a heck of a town."

"The libraries are awesome, " Sam said, and Dean didn't have to fake the smile at how Sam Sam sounded. "I was only staying until I got enough cash together, though."

"Hey, it was a plan," Dean said, again lightly. "I just took care of it for you."

Sam smiled and looked like he was going play along, but then got ambushed by a yawn, which, since everybody knew those things were contagious, it wasn't Dean's fault that he ended up smothering one of his own.

"Is your brain done making sure I'm for real?" Dean prodded at Sam with one foot. "'Cause if it is, I vote we get some more shut-eye. We can figure shit out later."

Sam hauled himself up and onto the bed wordlessly, and Dean laid back down. Neither one of them fell asleep, though, and after a while Sam murmured, "Thanks for coming for me."

"You're welcome," Dean said, just as softly. "But I swear, Sammy, if you don't get some sleep and end up in one of your whiny, emo moods--which I'm betting your dreams are leaving out, but take my word for it, you’re like the champ some days--I'll spike your coffee with NoDoze and take pictures of you bouncing off the walls."

Sam snorted, but his breathing evened out and deepened and took Dean right along with him.

* * *

The shower was running when Dean woke up again. The clock said it was well after noon and Dean was feeling almost like a functioning person, so he rolled to his feet and poked through the boxes until he found the coffee and got going on coaxing himself the rest of the way toward awake. Given that he was standing in the apartment of his not-dead and not-in-Hell brother, contemplating amnesia and life after the apocalypse and exactly how they'd gotten to where they were, Dean thought he was maybe entitled to fill a mug straight from where the fresh-brewed stuff dripped down rather than waiting for the entire pot to fill up before he started in.

He held off, though--knowing their lives, he figured he should probably save that for whatever was around the corner, because there always seemed to be something waiting to make things crazier. While everything was brewing, he got the blanket off the window and folded it and his makeshift bed away, and was standing and staring at the almost full coffee pot when Sam came back out of the bathroom. Dean caught a glimpse of the anti-possession tattoo as Sam pulled his t-shirt on over dripping wet hair, but didn't see anything like the marks Cas had left on him.

"You have one, too, right?" Sam asked, catching him looking. Dean pulled the collar of his shirt down, and Sam nodded. "They're… talismans? Wards, to keep us from being possessed."

"Right," Dean said, which more-or-less answered how he was going to break the news of their lives less ordinary.

"I dreamed it, us getting them, and then I spent a week trying to figure out the design. I think I weirded out a couple of the reference librarians." Sam said it like it was no big deal, and then added, "Maybe you could go through my notes, tell me what else I was seeing, because other than vampires, I'm not sure what I'm even looking at and researching legends is slow going."

"Sure," Dean answered, as soon as he could get his jaw off the ground. Sam cocked his head at him and wanted to know what was wrong, and he admitted, "I don't know whether I'm relieved or freaked here. You're taking all this pretty calmly."

"I'm not alone," Sam said, pulling two mugs out of a box and pouring them coffee. "I'm evidently not crazy, even if my life has seriously weird parts to it. I know a thousand times more than I did yesterday when I woke up--"

"Sam, the weird stuff is--really weird." Dean fucking hated that he had to be the one to start in on the bad news, but it was too much of a cop-out to stand there and not say something, just because it was hard for him to say it.

"Yeah, it's complicated," Sam said it even and calm, but his voice got thinner as he added, "I watched you get torn apart, remember?" Dean nodded, not trusting his own voice. Sam took a deep breath, and his voice steadied out, but he looked younger, somehow, like the gangly, unsure-of-himself Sam from high school. "It's not even that I'm not alone--it's, all this stuff I've been dreaming, not the weird stuff or the bad stuff, just the everyday, normal shit--it's real. You're real. I don't know if you get how huge that is right now."

"No," Dean said. "No, I get it." He took a gulp of coffee before he said things he wasn't sure Sam needed--or wanted--to hear and wished for some sugar to cut the industrial strength bitterness. He wasn't going to be drinking the stuff Sam had gone for occasionally, but hell, you could get mocha at McDonald's these days, so a little sugar wasn't a total cop-out.

"Here," Sam said, dropping a handful of sugar packets next to the coffeemaker. "Don't even try to make like you're not in a better mood if your first cup isn't black."

"Those are some detailed dreams you've been having," Dean muttered, but he tore open a couple of the packs and dumped them in. Sam laughed, an odd, half-strangled sound; when Dean looked at him he shook head.

"I didn't actually dream that," Sam said. "I just. Knew it." He grinned then, and laughed for real, which was an even better start to Dean’s day than not having to drink his coffee black.

* * *

Sam still did his thing with working his way through the menu at breakfast, which meant he ordered a Western omelet; Dean bit his tongue and didn't mention how much Sam really hated having bits and pieces of stuff, even stuff he liked, like ham and onions and peppers, mixed in with his eggs. The agonized look on Sam's face at the first bite was pretty much worth Dean having to share his pancakes until the waitress could get back with plain scrambled eggs.

There was an old payphone in the back near the bathrooms; the waitress told Dean they’d almost forgotten about it until the solar flares had fried half the cell phone towers. On his way back to it, Dean couldn’t help wondering whether Sam’s near-calm was going to last when he remembered how they were linked to all the really freaky shit. There was another guy using the phone when Dean got back to it, but he was saying his goodbyes, so Dean gave an old calling card a try and managed to get a call through to Lisa and Ben. He got their answering machine and kept it simple, let them know he was okay. Since there was nothing simple about whatever was going on with Sam, he skipped over that part and left it that he'd call again when he got the chance. Maybe by then he and Sam would have figured out what the hell was going on.

Sam was finishing up when Dean got back to the table; Dean felt it was an excellent time to go make sure his baby was okay. "C’mon, Sam--I’ve been wearing the same damn clothes for a couple of days, and it'd be nice to have my own toothbrush again."

"Of course," Sam said, serious, almost frowning. "You need to get clothes. It doesn't have anything to do with that time the car got towed and you started hyperventilating. They call that separation anxiety, right." Dean shot him a glare, but Sam's face was innocent and Dean pretended not to notice the smirk hovering in his brother's eyes. Seeing as how Sam was practically giddy at knowing something else, Dean was gonna let Sam think he'd gotten one over on Dean. Just this once.

The car was fine, and by some miracle, Dean had parked in a lot that would let him leave the car there for however long. Dean still wasn't letting himself think about how much it was going to cost, though, only grabbed his duffel and followed Sam, at least until they got back around to the front of the library.

"I don't even know how many times I saw you here," Dean said. He wandered up the steps, closer to the lions, aware that Sam was following him, but not really seeing anyone else.

"I was here almost every day," Sam said, quietly. "Researching, trying to figure out all the shit I kept seeing, trying to decide what it all meant in dream symbolism. I kept trying to convince myself that the monsters couldn’t be real no matter how vivid it all was." He sat down, leaving enough room for Dean to join him, and pulled his notebook out from his backpack. He opened it slowly, his fingers moving over each page, deliberate and careful, as though touching the paper made the words real. Unexpectedly, Dean thought about Dad--he'd never been that careful about his journal, but he'd thumb through it while he was thinking sometimes.

"You were always good at trying to figure things out. The best, even when you didn't want to do it," Dean told him. "I don't think that's telling you anything you don't already know."

Sam got a little red, which Dean filed away for later ragging purposes, but he shrugged it off and said, "I think you were right about letting everything take its time." He sounded pretty firm about it, which was about a thousand times better than he'd been before. "But I can't just sit around now that I know it's all real."

"I don't know that I could either, man," Dean told him.

"Yeah, so you asked me last night if I had any brilliant ideas, and, I don't know if it's brilliant, but." Sam took deep breath, hesitating until Dean gestured for him to go on. "It's kind of the same plan I had before, only instead of finding you, I figured I could check out some of the other stuff I've been dreaming and see if that didn't help make things more real. It worked with you--I dreamed so much about you, but now that you're here, I know you somehow."

Dean nodded slowly, gave himself a little time to make sure his voice was even. Sam didn't need to be carrying Dean's baggage around on top of all the crap of not knowing who he was.

"Sounds like a plan," he said. "You got anyplace in mind first?"

"I--maybe college?" Sam shrugged. "Stanford, right?"

"Yeah," Dean answered. "Right." If Dean hadn't personally iced Zachariah, he'd be the front-runner for setting up this whole situation. Even dead and shadowed on the floor, Dean would bet serious money he was smirking at the thought of Dean having to watch Sam head off to Stanford again, which was something Dean did not need to be thinking about right then. "Listen, man, I really could use that shower."

"Right, right, of course," Sam said, and started off toward the subway.

* * *

The shower didn't help with everything bouncing around Dean's head, finding Sam only to have to let him go again, but at least he was clean and he bought himself a good twenty minutes to slam a lid on it all. If he could okay Sam taking out Lucifer, he could damn well deal with Sam heading off to find himself, even if this Sam had only a hazy idea of everything out there.

Sam was fidgeting around the apartment when Dean came out of the bathroom, picking up books only to barely glance at them before putting them down in a different pile.

"Hey," he said. "I'm supposed to work again tonight, but if you want to hang out here, that'd be okay."

"Yeah, sure," Dean said, scrubbing the towel over his head a little harder than he needed to.

"You don't have to stick around," Sam said. "I don't--you probably have other stuff you could be doing."

"I'm fine, Sam." Dean tossed the towel back into the bathroom.

"Or you could come with me again," Sam said. "There's, I don't have a TV; it's pretty boring--"

"Sam," Dean said, and how he wasn't gritting his teeth was beyond him. "Either way is fine. I won't die of boredom in the eight hours you'll be gone. I do actually know how to read, in case that's something you haven't caught back up on."

"Sorry," Sam said. "That's not--I didn't mean it that way."

"Yeah," Dean sighed. "I know. Look, I'm the one who should be apologizing; I'm not firing on all cylinders here." He shrugged. "This whole thing, it's weird." That wasn't the whole story, of course, but there's enough truth to it that Dean didn't feel bad saying it.

"I don't know--" Sam started, then cleared his throat. "I can't tell if I'm being too needy or, or demanding. I don't know what the baseline is here."

"You realize you're letting me set the bar, right?" Dean said, smirking a little. Sam's mouth quirked up into a smile and Dean could tell he was almost at the point where he was ready to roll his eyes at Dean. "Trust me, Sammy. I'll let you know when you get too high-maintenance."

Sam did roll his eyes at that; Dean found himself grinning back.

"Come hang out at the bar," Sam said, firmly. "We can grab something to eat on the way."

"Sure thing, princess," Dean said.

* * *

Sam had yet another hole-in-the-wall for dinner, this time Russian or something, and again, they knew him as soon as he walked in. They pointed to a table and were bringing over plates before Dean even got settled.

"The first time I came here, I told them I wanted to try everything," Sam said, with a helpless smile. "Half the time, I don't even know what it is."

"I think I'm gonna have to come down on the side of 'dude-stop-talking-and-eat,'" Dean said, after the first bit of--yeah, not quite sure what, but he was tasting potatoes and cheese on the inside, and fried-in-butter on the outside and sour cream on top of everything. Damn hard to go wrong with all of that, especially when it came with a little glass of vodka for each of them, vodka like Dean had never had before. The waiter, an old guy with gunmetal gray hair and beard streaked with white, came over and Sam picked up one of the glasses and toasted with him. They both exhaled once and took the shot in a single go, and the old guy turned to Dean, grinning as Dean picked up his own glass and followed.

"Goddamn," Dean gasped, once the pure liquid fire made it down his throat. "Didn't know you had it in you, Sammy."

"Only one, though," Sam said. "I might be wandering around with a blank slate in my head, but I'm not stupid."

He grinned at Dean and went off on some tangent about how different kinds of vodka were made--predictably enough, the giant geek had researched it--and Dean sat and nodded and soaked everything up for when he wasn't going to be shooting the breeze with Sam over every meal.

* * *

The club was the same, though it was the start of the weekend and everything was a little amped up. There was an extra bouncer in the room and Dean could tell that the girls on stage were the stars. Sam kept moving, sent the waitresses back out in record time, and generally worked his ass off. It wore Dean out to watch. He'd done his own time behind the bar, and it wasn't the worst job he'd ever snagged to make a little cash, but it sure as hell wasn't on his list of things to do for the rest of his life.

Not that he had any kind of a plan or anything.

"Hey, Sam," he called. "You got your notebook with you? I can fill in some of the gaps for you." He lowered his voice as Sam came closer. "What we were hunting."

Sam tossed him the key to the padlock on his locker and Dean managed to borrow a pen from one of the waitresses, so he sat at the end of the bar and wrote down as much as he could about whatever it was they'd been hunting and exactly what they did to take it out. Some, Sam didn't have enough about the dream for Dean to figure out what was going on; on a couple he didn't remember. None of them featured anyone's description that Dean could obviously peg as Ruby, so he thought maybe they were part of the three or so months when Gabriel had been trying to teach Sam a lesson. And yeah, Dean was definitely not looking forward to Sam trying to untangle the angels and their issues, but whatever. For the hell of it, Dean added notes on the timing of whatever he could remember, too, even if it was nothing more than you were in high school and already a geek.

"Thanks," Sam told him later, on the way back to the apartment. "I know you've probably got things going on in your own life, but I appreciate the help."

"No big deal," Dean answered, trying for casual but missing by a mile, based on the look Sam shot him as he unlocked the outer door. Sam didn't say anything, though, only led the way silently up the stairs. He didn't say anything after they were inside either, which suited Dean just fine--it wasn't like he hadn't survived Sam's adolescent moodiness already--except for the goddamn voice in the back of his head that wouldn't shut the hell up about sending Sam off to Stanford of all places, with no fucking idea of what he was going to find at the end of that particular rainbow.

Sam dropped his backpack on the floor and headed to the bathroom; Dean picked up one of the three hundred books Sam had laying around and flipped through it, not looking up when Sam came back out. It was stupid and juvenile, but he was doing it anyway. Sam dropped down to sit on the edge of the bed and stared down at his hands.

"I don't know what I'm doing here," Sam said, after an endless couple of minutes where Dean eyed him from under his lashes and Sam pretended not to notice. "But I'm just going to ask this and trust that you'll be honest with me."

"Okay," Dean said, slowly.

"Don't answer this right away, okay?" Sam said. "Just--think first."

"Sam--"

"No, really, Dean. The dreams--you're always there. Just you. No other family, no parents, not--not really." Sam hesitated, long enough for Dean to wonder what he remembered, whether it was him and Dad going at it, or maybe finding Dad after he'd made the deal. "Anyway. It's the two of us."

"Yeah," Dean admitted. "That's how it was."

"Okay." Sam took a deep breath. "So what I want to ask you is if you'd come with me--"
He held up his hand as soon as Dean opened his mouth. "Just. Wait, okay? I don't know how much I'm going to remember, and I don't know if I'm ever going to be the guy you knew--"

"Okay, you can shut up now," Dean said, and maybe he was yelling, but getting Sam to let go of something he'd gotten stuck in his head was never an easy thing. "I get it--you're not sure about anything. I figured that out about ten minutes into this whole trip."

"I don't want you to come out of, of obligation," Sam said, not listening to Dean, like always. "Out of some feeling that you owe whoever I used to be--"

"Used to be?" Dean snorted. "I gotta tell you, man, from where I'm standing, all you're missing is the keepsake photo album, because you're still the same damn stubborn know-it-all you always were."

"Think about it!" Sam bellowed, at full-volume, loud enough that someone started banging upstairs. "Is that so much to ask?"

Dean found himself still holding onto the book, so tightly his knuckles were white.

"Please," Sam asked. "I'm not saying that it's all or nothing. I'm not. I just--you said I was gone and you were making peace with it--"

"Yeah--no," Dean choked out. " Not really." He swallowed hard. "I wasn't looking to check out, but that's about all I can say."

"I don't want to screw up your life," Sam said, quietly now. "Me being here is one thing, but if you're saying it's all true--making you go through it again while I put the pieces together… That's--that's something else."

"Sam," Dean sighed. "Our lives… just were what they were, man."

He hesitated, half-expecting to get into it more with Sam, but Sam only watched him, eyes steady and calm, the way they'd been when he'd insisted Dean come with him to try to rescue Adam, like they'd been when Dean had agreed to let him go try for Lucifer, the same as when he'd stood in the cemetery and did what he'd promised to do. Dean got it--sort of--got that Sam needed Dean to make the decision without all the baggage they'd been dragging around for forever, but there wasn't much doubt in his mind.

"I don't--It wasn't a choice, then, not ever, but I wouldn't have done it any differently if it had been," Dean said, rock-steady and ready to out-stubborn Sam if he had to. "That's a yes, by the way," he added. "And it's not cause I think I owe you."

"What about Indiana, the people I saw you with?"

"I--we can go there. Stay connected. I probably wouldn't be here without them," Dean said, gesturing to Sam's notebook. "They're on your list, one more piece of the puzzle. And we really need to start in South Dakota--I know you're thinking college, you have a lot of dreams in there about it, but we have to stop at the junkyard first--"

"You're serious," Sam interrupted. "You'll come with me? Just like that?"

Dean started to laugh, because of course he'd go with Sam, but then he caught sight of Sam's hands, clenched in the sheets, as tight and hard as Dean had been holding the book, and toned it down to a smile. "Yeah. Just like that."

"Okay," Sam said, in a rush. "I--good, um, thank you? Yeah. Thanks. Like, now? I mean, not right now, just, do you have stuff you need to take care of first?"

"Free and clear," Dean said. Tradition demanded that he give Sam grief over how excited he was--at the very least, he should be laughing at Sam--but since he mostly felt the same way, he was going to give it a miss this time around. "What about you? You got room to shake up that boring-ass schedule of yours?"

"The room rents by the week," Sam said. "And they don't owe me anything at work, so if I don't show up, I don't show up, and--yeah. I'm good. Except, maybe some boxes? For the books?"

"What? All of them?" Dean asked. "Dude, I know we have memory issues here, but my baby is way too small--not to mention too cool--to be a bookmobile."

"Oh," Sam said, reining in the enthusiasm. "Right, yeah. Sure. I'm sor--"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Dean sighed. "Stop apologizing. We'll figure out some way to make them all fit--" He caught sight of the tiniest of smirks and realized he'd been played again, and amnesiac or not, Sammy was only getting one pass from Dean and he'd already handed that one out. "I mean, you never know when we'll need fire-starters."

"God, you're a dick," Sam said, shaking his head and letting the smirk out for real. "I guess it's good I found that out early on."

"Ready to bail already?"

"No way," Sam said, smiling, but serious as all hell. "You're stuck with me."

"Tell me something I didn't know," Dean answered. Sam was still standing there, dopey grin on his face, and if Dean gave in and grinned back, he’d be setting all kinds of dangerous precedents, but it was impossible not to. "C'mon, man, you’re the one with the plan. Go see if you can bum some boxes from the place downstairs and let’s get this show on the road."

* * *

...and a sequel (All The Things) Come Back To You

* * *
* * *

Notes: Well, this popped into my head not two hours after the S5 finale, and I sketched out an outline and roughed in some scenes the next day, but my Big Bang was a mess and I had an early posting date, and then I had to recover from the mad dash to the end of that, and then this kept getting longer and longer and longer, and here we are, barely a month from S6. I have no idea if this has been done already (I haven't read anyone's codas because I only had a tenuous grasp on this as it was) and it's been ages since I've written anything long with Sam and Dean, but it really, really wanted to be written.

Thanks to

1orelei for reading along with the rough, rough draft; to

withdiamonds, who was her usual excellent, enabling self; and ginormous thanks to

bientot, who dove in when I was not even a third of the way through, and who waved pompoms and cheered and nudged and generally was awesome during July and August, and who took on the extraneous commas and my lay/lie issues without a single cross word. ♥

Dream On, 2/2

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