The white noise builds and closes like a wave over his head. Dean doesn't know what sounds he's making, what faces, and he doesn't care. For the first time in long moments, he knows where he is, who he's with, knows that he hurts and that it isn't stopping, and feels a surge of something so basely grateful that he knows the vibrations in his chest are sobs.

The hurt grows, finds new tender places and flays them open, and Dean watches each new agony rise and fall, bursts of light against his eyelids like bright sun on the surface of dark, cool water.