Title: Wanted

Author: Still Waters

Fandom: Supernatural

Disclaimer: Not mine. Just playing, with love and respect to those who brought these characters to life. Neither "Supernatural" nor Bon Jovi's song belong to me.

Summary: Two brothers. Two trips to Hell. One song that breaks them.

Notes: This piece stems from the heartbreaking scene in 3x16 (No Rest for the Wicked) where Sam and Dean sing Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive." The acting just blew me away – I felt like the Winchester brothers' entire relationship could be understood just by watching that scene. I started thinking about their relationship with music, as well as with each other, and this story was born. The first part of this piece occurs right after 3x16. The second part occurs after 5x22 (Swan Song) and references 6x01 (Exile on Main St.). Dialogue taken from the show is in double quotes, lyrics from Bon Jovi are in italics only. I hope I did the characters justice. Thank you for reading.

Before Dean drove, the Impala was silent.

Dad would talk, teach and quiz them about skills and lore, would sometimes even laugh and tell stories on days where a job had gone well and the shadows of the past weren't so dark. When he was quiet, either in strategy or memory, the radio spoke instead - the even-toned lull of talk shows, the underlying urgency of newscasters.

But when the talking stopped….

Silence.

Sam wondered if Mom had liked music – if she hummed while cutting the crusts off Dean's sandwiches, or sang lullabies as she rocked a fussy Sam to sleep. Wondered if that was what made any melody too painful.

Because when Dad drove….

There was never music.

Under Dean though, the Impala sang. Dean had always loved music - one of Sam's strongest memories was of Dean sitting on the rusty orange bedspread of another nameless motel, no word from Dad in three days, diligently repairing, for probably the hundredth time, the old, busted Walkman he had resurrected years before from a musty, Midwestern Goodwill. When he started to drive, just him and Sam in the car, the tapes moved from the Walkman to the Impala's greater stage….and Sam got a front row seat to a wild showing of one of Dean's greatest passions – one that Dad was never allowed to see. In music, as with family and anything else important to Dean, he was all in – singing, head banging, foot tapping, steering wheel drumming, harmony humming, wild air guitaring…..he couldn't not be fully involved. He'd needle Sam's introspective silence, nudge him into singing along, until Sam would finally acquiesce and take backup vocals. Sam didn't have the voice or feel for music that Dean did, but he'd sing anyway, just for the sheer pleasure on Dean's face when Sam joined in, the feeling of togetherness and the overwhelming gratitude that would surge through Sam that, despite all the crap in their lives, he had such an awesome brother. The secondary vocals, while good for Sam's faltering voice, also gave him more time to steal glances at Dean – to watch the open performance, the uninhibited joy, and to revel in his brother's happiness. They'd sing to "pump up", to celebrate, to forget. The car was only silent when things were real bad – when they had one of those arguments that took days to resolve, or when one or both of them was bloody and voiceless.

The first five days after Dean's death, Sam drove in silence – despite Dean's love of it, just the idea of music seemed profane. But the Impala felt wrong under his hands, like she was missing more than just the obvious part of her rhythm. And Sam couldn't shake the sound of hellhounds…of ravaged flesh, arterial spray, and desperate screams. So he turned on the radio.

And the music betrayed him.

He found himself absently humming the backup vocals, an unconsciously programmed response, before the chorus, and his brain, kicked in.

I'm a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride…

Sam felt the color drain from his face as his vision grayed; would have laughed at the cliché if he could actually breathe.

He couldn't.

He jerked the car off the road, fumbling for the door handle as his empty stomach rolled.

The idling engine, the dull sound of spit hitting gravel, the hunched shadow over scuffed boots…..it all disappeared. He saw Dean moving to the music, face brightening in triumph as he got Sam to sing along. Heard the obnoxiously loud, off-key voice melding effortlessly with the disturbingly familiar lyrics…..and heard that voice drop off, leaving Sam's backup as the primary.

He tried not to realize, in hindsight, how horrifically prophetic that had been.

Sam heaved violently. Five days of nausea and grief-induced inappetence brought no relief with the spasms. It was just bile and pain, and he couldn't understand how he could be empty anywhere, when the grief and guilt and need overtook his dreams, stung his eyes and spilled down his face.

He reached back desperately for the radio as the music continued its haunting assault.

I'm wanted, dead or aliv-

His hand flailed against the dial.

Silence.

Except for the Impala's disappointment, Sam's gasping…..

…and his brother's screaming absence.

"Bon Jovi rocks. On occasion."

Maybe.

But not today.

Because today, Dean was dead.

Sam was alive.

And the only thing, the only person, he wanted…..

…..was in Hell to keep Sam that way.

Dean hated silence. It reminded him of Dad's haunted gaze and clenched jaw in the hotel the night Mom died, where even infant Sammy hadn't dared to cry. Of Bobby's red, broken eyes in the rearview mirror while Sam lay cold in Dean's lap. Of the heavy air after arguments and bad news. He hated how the silence made him think.

And remember.

So he blasted the music. Sam always insisted, teasing around an exaggerated disgust, that Dean was a not-so-closet hedonist. Maybe college boy was right, but hell, they both knew how fucked up life was, so why not chase your pleasures while you could? Music made Dean feel good and, while Sam wouldn't admit it, it made him feel good too. The kid was usually quiet and in his own head, which was just wrong when Zep's "Ramble On" was blaring on a sunny day, but, despite that bit of weirdness, Dean knew that the "hits of mullet rock" had become just as comforting, and just as much home, to Sam as the rumble of the Impala's engine. Sam would roll his eyes, plead with Dean to turn the music down, bitchface at his selection, but Dean saw the truth – saw the way the freakishly long body melted into the leather with familiar guitar riffs; how the absent-minded drumming of anxious fingers on worm denim naturally took up familiar drum beats; the shy, pleased smile as he looked out from under too-long bangs at Dean rocking the air drums and singing obnoxiously loud; the put upon sigh and "no way in hell" glare as Dean pushed him to sing along, followed by the steady rise of the accompanying voice as embarrassment lost the battle to pure joy, and they rocked every line of their anthem.

Once, when Sam was drunk enough to talk, but not so drunk as to be overly maudlin, he told Dean about Jess's love of orchestral music, and the first time she took him to a classical concert on campus. About how he had borrowed every classical CD the library had over the next week while Jess teased him about never having heard such music….and how she didn't say a word when his face almost betrayed the truth. About wine and conversation and dozing to Mozart with Jess running her fingers through his hair. Dean had found a few classical tapes at a thrift store about two months after Jess's death and added them to the rotation. Sam had smiled wistfully, a heartbreaking mix of gratitude and pain, and closed his eyes, trying to recapture the feeling. But he only fell asleep to Dean's music, and so Mozart, Bach, and Tchaikovsky were soon replaced by the familiar lullabies of Zeppelin, Metallica, and AC/DC.

It had been three months since Sam wrestled Lucifer back to Hell and Dean had forced himself to fulfill his apple pie promise. He didn't listen to music in the truck – it just didn't feel right – and he struggled to keep his tools in his hands when subjected to the popular crap the guys played at the jobsites. He'd still hum Metallica when he was really stressed, on days where the flashes of nightmares were more comforting than the life he was living. But he couldn't sing along when Ben rocked out to AC/DC while doing homework, because even though he tried, dammit he tried, his throat would still tighten with a passing guitar riff and he'd have to leave the room. Lisa had finally stopped asking him if he was okay, and Dean pretended that Ben's new headphones were in deference to the neighbors.

The silence was still worse.

He decided to take the Impala that morning – he had a few days off and Bobby had invited him over/threatened to kick his ass because it had been too long. Once he was on the open highway, Dean found himself naturally putting in a tape. After an hour, he started moving with the beat. Another hour and he had the windows down, the soda can doubling as a microphone, and a rusty voice belting out lyrics as familiar as Latin incantations.

With the silence banished, so were the ghosts.

About twenty miles from Bobby's place, Dean switched over to the radio. Several awesome songs later, he was pulling into the driveway when he suddenly realized what he was singing along to.

And times when you're alone, all you do is think….

He slammed on the brakes, vision swimming.

I'm a cowboy, on a steel horse I ride…

"Dean?" A crunch of gravel followed by Bobby's worried voice.

But all Dean heard was his own desperate attempt at distraction, the slap of his hand against Sam's jacket as he pushed him to join in, the timid sound of Sam picking up backup vocals, followed by the grin as he threw his head back and owned the chorus as Dean trailed off into grief, fear and desperate determination in the face of the two words he had been asking the world since he was four years old. He saw the moment Sam beat Lucifer, the same look in his eyes…and then watched his brother fall into darkness and save the world.

Why us?

"Dean!"

It wasn't Sam. The passenger seat was empty….wrong….and Sam's absence was screaming louder than Bobby's fear ever could.

Louder than Dean's shattered heart.

Why us?

I'm wanted, dead or aliv-

An arm thrust across his chest, silencing the radio.

Somewhere, someone was breathing heavily. And it had started to rain. He couldn't hear it, but he felt it silently streaking his face.

Must've been rain.

He hadn't been able to cry for months.

"Come on boy, snap out of it," Bobby pleaded.

Dean wasn't sure if he complied. Couldn't really bring himself to care.

Because the music had betrayed him.

It made him remember.

That Sam was worse than dead.

That Dean was still alive.

And that the only thing, the only person he wanted…..

…..had made Dean promise to stay that way.