It's been a long time since they walked to the tree with the blue X spray-painted on it, the point past which Sam could not go. Just how long it's been, Sam's not sure; his watch stopped at two a.m. But it's been a long time since Sam watched Dean disappear around the bend of the gravel road, form receding in the dark.

They spent the year well, Sam knows. They did not waste it. It was a good year, the best of years, Dean's last, and it's no comfort at all. "If you try to welch or weasel your way out, the deal is off," the demon had said, and Dean hadn't tried; he hadn't even considered it. They'd had an argument about it early on. "Of course I want to live, Sam," Dean snapped. "I would love to live. But not at that price. No way." They had the argument very early on, Sam knows, because that was before Sam had started to count the days. Dean never counted, not even towards the end, but he had to have known that Sam did, and anyway, that was the last time they'd had that argument.

It's been a long time. Sam knows he should go get the Impala and drive to the crossroads. He should be able to go past the line marked by the X, now that it's done. But he can't do it, can't make himself move, not yet. He's been on the ground since the beginning, almost, when he couldn't control the shaking that began in his legs and worked its way up, so he sat on the ground, curled his arms around his knees like a child.

It's a night of perfect darkness, sky devoid of stars, and the crossroads is a long way from any town. It's a cold night, March in Wyoming, but Sam hasn't felt the cold in a while. Vaguely he thinks that that should be a bad thing, but the thought slips from him quickly and is gone.

It's not far, where they left the Impala. Sam could be there in a minute, if he got up; he could be at the crossroads in two, if he drove. Soon, he thinks. Soon, but not yet. He knows what he will find, but until he sees it, it doesn't have to be real, not all the way. He draws his legs closer to his chest and thinks about nothing at all.

Sometime after that -- it doesn't matter what time it is, now that there's no countdown -- Sam begins to hallucinate. There's a figure moving towards him down the road, hard to distinguish through the low-hanging mist, and he thinks at first that it's the crossroads demon coming to take him, too, but then he remembers that the crossroads demon can't leave the crossroads. That's part of the rules. They'd spent a long time learning the rules -- you can't go past the marked spot on the road if you aren't making the deal, that's part of the rules -- and so it's not the demon. The movements are all wrong for a woman, anyway, too little rolling of the hips, but there's no one else out here, there can't be.

The figure moves closer and resolves into a familiar form, and bitterness rises at the back of Sam's throat, because he could deal with any other hallucination but not this -- not yet, not ever -- and he hunches in closer to himself. He can feel the cold again, now, and he concentrates on that, the prickling in his fingers and toes. He wants to look away from the illusion but can't. The figure is drawing closer to him and the details are right, even, the way the left foot turns in a little with each step -- but of course it would, it's Sam's hallucination, and he knows all the details.

The figure is within shouting distance now, but it doesn't say anything. Of course it doesn't. A hallucination is like a spirit: can't speak. It's still moving closer, though, and Sam can hear the gravel crunching beneath its feet. A hallucination shouldn't have weight, Sam thinks; it's a good hallucination, his mind providing even the extra details, weight and mass, and still it's moving closer. Within talking distance, now, shooting distance, and Sam thinks distantly that he should have brought one of the shotguns with him, give rock-salting this hallucination a try. He hadn't brought a shotgun with him, though; there hadn't seemed much point, not considering what was going to happen. What was done. It doesn't matter, even now. He's not going to try to stop anything that's coming for him, not anymore.

"Sam," the figure says, and Sam's mind has gotten the inflection just right, the way the a lasts almost two syllables, and he grins a little, out of habit -- reflex and muscle memory -- before he shakes it off.

"Sam," the figure repeats, and it's even nearer now, stabbing distance or rock salt from the hand, and Sam doesn't have either. It closes in on Sam and lays hands on his shoulders, thumbs along his neck.

"You're not real," Sam breathes, not leaning into the touch; but it's good, his mind is good, it's got him most of the way convinced.

The figure pulls him up and Sam lets it, stands mouth-to-nose and looks down, counts freckles in the dark. "I thought it was done," the figure says. "The crossroads demon came for me and I thought it was done. I could see the hell-hounds and the flames and all that shit and then she tried to drag me and it didn't work, Sam, she couldn't take me with her--"

Sam looks straight at it, smiles a little. "If you're my hallucination," he says levelly, "you should disappear when I stop believing in you."

The figure's mouth quirks. "Here I go and survive the deal with the demon and you think I'm a hallucination?"

"You're not real," Sam tells it.

"Dude, I'm not freaking Tinker Bell, okay?" it replies, irritated, and Sam's conviction falters, because no way could his own brain have come up with that one. Tinker Bell? I don't believe in fairies, says Robin Williams, the reference clattering up from somewhere deep in his memory, and maybe Sam could have come up with this on his own, but the figure's talking again: "Look, the demon, she tried to take me, but she couldn't do it, said there was something holding me here, some kind of anchor, and she wanted it to be something I'd done, but it wasn't, she couldn't take me with her and she screamed and then she was gone and Sam, it's me, I'm still here" -- it's got its hands on Sam's shoulders and it's good, curling its fingers in hard -- "and it's the amulets, okay, those things Bobby gave us that you made me put on--"

Sam barks out a laugh. "Now I'm sure you're a hallucination," he tells it. "You mean the amulets I found at the bottom of your duffel bag an hour before--" Before time was up, he means to say, but can't. He'd found them and shoved one around each of their necks, and Dean had cracked, BFFs, eh, Sammy? and Sam had punched him in the arm because he couldn't cry, not yet.

"Yeah, those amulets," the hallucination says. "The ones Bobby said would protect against demonic possession? Apparently they also protect against demons taking you to hell."

"Nice story," Sam says, but it's really starting to get old now, this hallucination with his brother's face and his brother's jokes and his brother's hands digging into his shoulders.

Sam wonders if hallucinations can tell when you stop believing in them, because something moves across its face and it says, "No, Sammy. Don't do this to me, not now. Not after all of this. I'm here and I'm alive and I'm not going anywhere, God damn it. Look at your shirt. The amulet burned a hole through your shirt, didn't it? Burned right through to the skin."

Sam looks, and the hallucination isn't lying: there's a hole there, red skin shining beneath it. "Yeah?" he says, his mouth dry.

"Happened to me, too, look," it says, pushing his shirt aside, and it's still talking: "It's got something to do with the amulets, I don't know what, but they worked, Sam, somehow they worked, and why won't you fucking believe me when I say I'm really here?"

Sam traces his fingers along the bright raw skin, places his palm on his brother's chest. The heart is beating quickly beneath his hand, faster as Sam steps closer, and he has an idea, now, of how to drive it away. He slides his hand up around his brother's neck and leans in, presses his lips to his brother's mouth. The kiss is dry and should be over already, because this is Sam's hallucination and he knows how this is supposed to go: his brother is supposed to push him away, shove back and say, "What the fuck was that?" and then make some dumb joke about how this didn't just happen, and then the hallucination would be gone.

But the hallucination isn't gone. It's still there, just pulls back a little and looks up at Sam and says, "Fuckin' A, Sam, you wait until after I should be dead already and then try to get away with just that? At least do this right." And then he's pulling Sam back down, Dean's mouth hitting hard against Sam's and Dean's tongue moving in Sam's mouth and it's real and Sam knows it, has known it the whole time but wouldn't let himself believe it, but it's real, it has to be; he's never kissed Dean before but he's light-headed, something warm unraveling in his gut, and Dean's real, moving and alive in his hands.

"You idiot," he says against Dean's mouth, his neck, "you complete fucking idiot, how the fuck are you still here, how are you not--"

Dean kisses him quiet, thumbs at the wetness on Sam's face and says, "I just couldn't go. You would have missed me too much."

Sam hiccoughs out a laugh. "Missed you too much? Fuck, Dean."

Dean kisses him again, smiles against his mouth. "C'mon, let's get out of here," he says. "I've got to go say hi to my girl. I bet she would have missed me more."

Sam chokes on a laugh and Dean punches him on the arm. The Impala is a minute's walk from here, Sam thinks, but it doesn't matter, they're not counting down anymore, and Dean is beside him, grinning brightly in the dark.