Disclaimer: I don't own the show, have anything to do with the show. . .blah blah blah. You know the rest.

Author's Notes: Spoilers for S2. Takes place sometime after "Bloodlust". AU as of "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things".

I.

Sam thinks it's about Kentucky. Sam thinks that's where things went wrong.

Dean knows better. But then, he always did.

II.

The call had come in the middle of the night, jarring him out of dreams he couldn't quite remember. There had been a woman—a dark brunette—with a soft smile and cold hands. The details were hazy and already slipping, the way dreams drowned, slow and then suddenly gone, but it left Dean feeling vaguely, strangely uneasy, as if this dream was more than met the eye.

But dreams didn't mean anything—unless you were Sammy, where dreams inevitably meant bruises and beasts and all kinds of bloodshed—so Dean pushed the uneasiness back like he pushed everything back, and reached for the phone, thinking maybe it was finally Dad.

The guy on the phone was saying stuff, but Dean completely missed it all because he was too busy remembering that it'd be a little hard for Dad to be calling. Dad kinda couldn't call 'cause Dad was kinda dead (Dad's dead, Dad's dead, Dad's deaddeaddead) but man, old habits were hard to break. A year on the road traveling, waiting for any kind of sign, looking for any kind of clue as to where their dad could be. A year on the road with Sam just waiting for Dad to call, waiting for Dad to come back and make everything right again.

Dad called. Dad came back. Dad got possessed. Dad died.

And everything was as fucking far from all right as it could possibly hope to get.

Dean thought.

The guy on the phone must have asked a question because there was suddenly a silence that was full of expectation—Dean knew those kind of silences, they came often after questions from Sam. (Why don't we have a Mommy? Sam at 4. When's Dad going to be home? Sam at 7. Why can't we be normal? Sam at 15. What are we going to do now? Sam at 23.) Dean never had great answers for such silences; he sure as hell didn't now.

So, instead, Dean said, "Sorry?"

And the guy sighed and ran through his spiel again, this time with Dean listening, or at least partially. Old friend of Dad's (bet you don't know he's dead), loved him like a brother (bet you didn't know his wife) knew him from the war (bet you didn't really know him. . .bet you didn't really know what he could do). Dean knew he was being unfair, but lately the whole being fair thing had little interest for him. Still, he was grateful this guy wasn't another fucking hunter. It seemed like he couldn't step go two blocks anymore without running into another hunter.

He knew this should be comforting—like having allies when things got bad—but for some reason, this whole hunter community deal was just pissing him off more and more. Hunting had always been about family, the family business, the family quest. Anyone not him or Sam or Dad were supposed to be living their apple lives.

Dean found himself glancing at Sam, who was still asleep. He looked relatively peaceful, which was sort of a first. My brother, he could die. I can't leave them. He could die.

Dean wasn't exactly sure where the thought came from, except that it was pretty much his mantra. He couldn't leave. His Dad could die. Well, his Dad did die. His brother could too. It was his job to keep Sammy safe. Still, the thought had kind of come out of nowhere, as if it was something he had literally said before. He might've tried to track it down . . .but there was still Mr. Grey to deal with.

Dean made himself listen closer again. It was pretty much the standard deal. Dead guy, dead guy, dead guy. Hearts gone missing. Brains too.

Sounded like their kind of gig. Dean told Mr. Grey so and hung up the phone. Naturally, Sammy woke up right after that. "Something goin' on?" he asked thickly.

"Ain't it always," Dean said with a smile. "Looks like we're gonna see some blue grass."

III.

Sam thinks that's where it started. But Dean knows it started with a dream. "Look, Dean, I know it hurts."

"You don't know. You don't have a fucking clue."

IV.

Kentucky took awhile to get to, and Dean begrudgingly allowed Sam to drive, but only because he was tired and those dreams were getting on his fucking nerves. Sam hadn't noticed because there wasn't much to see—Dean wouldn't allow himself to wake up screaming or crying or even breathing differently, not if it would alert Sam. Dean refused to let it happen. Besides, the dreams were unnerving and strange and increasingly abstract, but they certainly weren't terrifying. Nobody was bleeding, at any rate. Nobody was bleeding or screaming or dying.

At least, until they passed the border of Tennessee and Kentucky, and then Dean was dreaming of Marshall Hall, someone he hadn't dreamt of in a long time. As usual, Marshall was faceless, no eyes, no nose, no mouth, but there was no question as to who he was, not with the gaping hole within his chest. Dean looked down at his own chest to see blood staining his white shirt. Dean knew it was Marshall Hall's blood; he had stolen it, along with Marshall's heart.

They were standing in some kind of ballroom, and everybody was dancing. Dean stood apart, silently watching, as Marshall spun the dark brunette in his arms. Her eyes were all for Dean as she twirled effortlessly. "You were supposed to be the one," she whispered. "You were supposed to be the one."

Then, suddenly, Marshall was gone, and the brunette was walking towards him, moving faster than the eye could see, the way spirits always did. She was wearing a wedding gown and a veil that dripped dark spots of blood. When he lifted it away, only her lips were unstained.

She pushed her hand in his face, and Dean saw the diamond on her finger. "You were supposed to be one," she said, "and now look what's happened to us." Dean went to grasp her hand, knowing that the two were meant to dance, but his father was suddenly there, pushing Dean back and out of danger. "Mind if I cut in," Dad said with a smile, and the two were suddenly spinning on the dance floor. Dean tried to figure out what was weirder—the fact that his dad was alive or that he was dancing.

Or that he was smiling—that was weird too. Dean watched as his father dipped the brunette. "Does this ever have to stop?" Dad asked. "I'm not ready for it to end."

The dark brunette with the bloody face smiled softly as she pulled away. "Then you should never have let it begin," she told him, and his father fell slowly to the floor.

"Dad!" Dean screamed, trying to run over, but suddenly there was so many people in the way. "Dad! Dad! Are you okay! Talk to me, Dad! Talk to me!"

But his Dad didn't talk because he was dead, and Dean felt himself sliding helplessly to his knees. The brunette sat in front of him, her cold hands in his hands. "If you had just finished your vows," she said. "It didn't have to end like this."

And when Dean woke up, silently shaking and out of breath, Sam has stopped the car to stare at him like he's grown a third head. "Dude," he said. "You all right?"

Dean didn't know how to answer that. So instead, he said, "I'm fine."

V.

"All right," Sam says, sounding more frustrated by the second. "Why don't you tell me? Tell me exactly how much I don't know."

"You don't know how to shut up and back the fuck off. I'm fine, Sam. Leave it alone."

VI.

So they got to Kentucky and met up with Grey and talked to a few other people, widows and orphans, mostly. Sam started to over identify with the rebellious teen who lost his dad, and Dean knew that this job wouldn't end well . . .and that was even before their fake IDs were spotted.

Then, later, they were at a diner, and Dean was bitching about their shitty luck ("Just once, I'd like a cop who didn't do EVERY fucking background check.") when they heard a scream from across the street that took agony to whole new levels. They ran out of the restaurant and across the street along with half the freaking town, and Sam found the body near a dumpster, a man of undeterminable age. Undeterminable because most of the man's skull was on the sidewalk, and his face was ripped to shreds, like it had gotten in the way. His chest was open too, and the heart obviously missing, but it was the head that looked the worst. The scalp looked like a regurgitated, bloody pie crust.

"Ready to eat some strawberry pie?" Dean muttered as people inevitably screamed and gasped around him. Sam turned to glare at him for a long moment before he stomped away to brood somewhere.

VII.

Now Sam is broody all over again, only it's not about Dean's inappropriate sense of humor, and no matter how he tries, Dean can't shake him from the subject. Sam wants Dean to tell him how's he feeling, and Dean tries to joke his way out of it, but when he borrows a line from his man Jack, the line falls flat from his lips.

Because no matter what Sam says, Dean knows that his brother can't handle the truth.

VIII.

When Sam totally yarks while they're at the morgue, Dean can't help but rib him about it. Not that he was feeling entirely un-queasy himself. This dude was pretty vomitlicious.

The body that they had found turned out to be a man named Joel Barker. His heart and brain were missing. . .and the coroner had found some saliva inside the skull.

That's where Sam started to blink hard, at both the body and the coroner. "Umm. . .saliva in the. . .what? How did it, uhhh, how did it get there?"

"My guess?" the coroner said. "This serial killer is some kind of cannibal. He doesn't seem interested in the flesh or bones, but the hearts and brains? I think he's eating them." The coroner looked down at the whopping sample of drool he had collected. "He's apparently a little messy with his snacks."

Dean saw Sam blink again, and watched his brother swallow hard with a great deal of amusement. As the coroner walked away to wash a scalpel or something, Dean leaned in closer to his brother. "Dude," he whispered, smirking too widely. "Forget what I said about strawberry pie. This is more like freaking raw hamburger . . .with a bloody, little scalp bun."

Sam swallowed once again . . .and then he was gone, as far as his freakishly long legs would take him. Dean found himself chuckling as the coroner came back, a puzzled look on his face.

"Rookie," Dean explained, and then shook his head, smiling, as he looked at Barker's head. The smile faded almost immediately when he remembered that hamburger was what he had for dinner.

Dean considered running after his brother to the bathroom, but Sam was back by then, hastily wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Dean pushed the nausea back the way he pushed everything back, and turned to look at Sam with a wide grin.

"Dude," he said quietly, "you're such a freaking girl."

"Shut up, Dean," Sam said, and Dean can't get himself to stop laughing.

IX.

"Would you stop fucking around for one damn second," Sam says after Dean tries to deflect more questions. "You can't keep doing this to yourself."

"Doing what?" Dean asks. It sounds like a smart ass question, and it is, but only partially, because Dean's only doing what he's always done. He wouldn't know how to stop even if he wanted to.

"You can't keep shutting me out, Dean! You have got to talk about this. Dad was—"

"Dad's dead, Sam," Dean snaps quickly. "It's time to move on."

X.

Moving on sounded good on paper, but it was harder in application when Dean's dreams of this dark brunette would just not go away. The brothers had gone back to the hotel after their discovery at the morgue, and Sam (damn him) had noticed that Dean hadn't slept much in a couple of days. Dean did not want to go to sleep; he did not want these dreams again, but he also didn't want Sam asking any questions, so he promised to take a quick nap while Sam did some research. Of course, Dean had no intention of actually letting himself fall asleep, but the lack of shuteye caught up with him the second his head hit the pillow. Dean fell asleep hoping he'd have dreams of drool and raw hamburger. That would be gross, but nowhere near as disturbing.

He didn't get what he wished.

The brunette was standing in front of the church, once again in her wedding dress. There was no blood on her face or hands, but there was blood pooling around her feet. She turned away from the church to look at him up and down. Then, she told him he wasn't really dressed for the occasion.

Dean looked down at what he was wearing—scrub pants and a white T-shirt—and stepped up to where she's standing, his bare feet sticking in her dark blood. "Looks like good formal wear to me," he said. "For dying, anyway."

"So why don't you do it, already?" she asked, and suddenly the church was gone as if it never had been. Now they were standing at the hospital, and her face was turned away from him. She spun quickly, swivelling her head, and her eyes were the brightest, deepest orange.

"Today's your lucky day, kid." And the brunette reached out to grab his forehead, but Dean woke up before she touched him, physically pulling back in bed. He quickly looked over at Sam, but Sam was so intent in his research he hadn't even noticed. Dean would have thanked God for small favors but it was hard to thank God for anything these days.

Thirty minutes later, Dean had showered, and Sam had finally found a lead. "It's that kid, Aaron," Sam said while Dean threw on a new shirt. It takes Dean only a second to remember who Aaron is (Broody kid. Dad died. Way too much like Sam). "I just called his mom to check up and stuff, and guess what? Aaron's just checked himself into a mental hospital."

Dean shrugged. Sam seemed to think that this was some massive breakthrough, but Dean didn't get what the big deal was. "So?" he asked. "Kid's dad just died, Sam. Not a big surprise that he's all fucked up."

It took Dean a second to realize what a potential chick flick moment this was. And he was the one who opened it. (Godfuckingdammit.) Thankfully, Sam was so absorbed into his Aaron-Sammy mental bond to even notice how Dean had slipped. "Yeah," Sam said, "but check this out: Aaron was there, on the street, when Joel Barker died—"

"So was half the town, Sammy—"

"And," Sam said, completely ignoring Dean, "He said he saw something running away from the body."

Dean barely glanced up. "Oh yeah? And what was that?"

"His dad," Sam said, and Dean glanced up.

TBC

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