Season Two

Episode Eleven: Selling My Soul

By Irismay42 & Kittsbud

Part Four

Sleep EZ Motel
5.29 p.m.
6hrs 31mins…

Dean didn’t know how long it had taken to dump the cult freak. What he did know was it had taken far too long. When every minute, every second mattered to Sam, then every menial task like this was a waste.

Waste.

Now there was a word that truly should have been the Winchesters’ family dictum. Except maybe now just for once they could do something useful. Maybe they could finally finish Haris.

Maybe they could save Sam.

Maybe…

Dean pulled the Impala into a vacant spot in the meager lot and killed the ignition. There was no way he could find information on the Seal in time, but hopefully Sam and his Stanford brain already had. Sammy could find anything. He was the Winchester geek.

Dean? Well, Dean was the Winchester muscle.

The hunter absently let a hand run over the bump to his head and he winced. Yeah, the Winchester crash test dummy too!

Still, Dean didn’t mind taking the blows. He didn’t mind being the brawn – not as long as Sam was there to back him up, to be his kid brother – to be his best friend on their long, perilous trips across the highways.

Dean smiled and pushed open the heavy Chevy door with a grunt of satisfaction, for once truly believing he could save Sam. Hell no, Sam could save Sam with his gift for finding obscure information.

Double timing it across the yard, Dean slid a hand to the motel door and pushed it inwards, forcing a grin just to convince his brother he’d stopped freaking out over the deal. Fat chance, not until midnight…

“Hey, Cinderella…” Dean paused in the doorway, the sight of the empty room making him catch his breath in fear. Maybe Haris had sent more goons?

Quickly glancing around for signs of a struggle, Dean noted his brother’s discarded phone on the floor. It lay innocently on the carpet as if it had slipped from the lanky hunter’s pocket. Except, Dean knew different.

After so many months on the road together, so many hunts together, it wasn’t so hard to read his little brother and know what he was going through.

Sam was angry, upset – desperate, and in that desperation he had done the only thing he could to protect his family, his brother. Sam had run.

Not just run, though: he’d run to Haris.

Dean checked the room again as he stooped to pick up Sam’s cell. There was nothing amiss. No toppled tables, no broken glass.

Nothing.

To add to the evidence, Sam’s over-large phone blinked intermittently, signaling there were two new voice messages. Dean scrolled until he brought up the missed numbers, instantly recognizing one as his father’s, and one as Sarah Blake’s.

“Sammy, you stupid, stupid sonofa…” Dean almost lobbed the phone back at the wall it had hit earlier. But he couldn’t. He needed to know what the messages said first, because if he was right, Sam had as good as committed suicide.

Taking a long breath, Dean hit the screen to hear the first message. After a brief pause, John Winchester’s grumbling tones crackled across the line.

“Sam, I had a lead on the Seal but someone beat me to it. Call me, I need to know where you are…”

There was a hiss as if the voicemail had come in on a long distance line, then a click as John hit the ‘end call’ button. As always, the message had been short, to the point, and with little affection in the father’s tone.

Still, Dean knew the message was more than just a simple communication of facts. Their dad had been trying in his own way to check in on Sam, to make sure the deal hadn’t yet come to fruition. He may not be a man of many words, or a man who showed his feelings often, but there was no doubt in Dean’s mind that John wouldn’t stop searching for a way to save Sam any more than he’d stopped chasing Haris.

Not that it made Dean feel any better.

Their father wasn’t here, now. He wasn’t standing by Dean’s side, ready to help him drag Sam back from whatever fate he’d given in to.

A fate I caused. Not anyone else…

Dean’s bottom lip quivered, and he fought the urge to punch the nearest wall. There was another message yet – one that might help him find Sam.

Tapping the screen again, Dean listened, already half-guessing what he was about to hear.

“Sam? It’s Sarah…is everything alright? Is Dean okay? You scared me with your message earlier. Please call me back as soon as you get this. I’m worried about you!”

Dean let the cell slip through his fingers and bounce back on the carpet without waiting for the customary beep that announced the message was over. Sam had called Sarah, and he’d said something to scare her. Something he hadn’t had the stomach to face Dean and say.

A sharp pain welled in the hunter’s chest, but it wasn’t physical. It was the sting caused by the knowledge his little brother had deserted him to face his destiny – alone.

Sammy had said goodbye…but not to his big brother.

“NO!” Dean howled angrily, his right fist striking a nearby table lamp and knocking it onto the floor. The move tore at his recovering hand making it throb, and he thrived on the pain, channeling it. NEEDING it.

“I swear I’m never gonna let your sorry ass outta my sight ever again…” The hunter began to scour the small room looking for clues, his mind not really thinking straight, not functioning correctly without the surety of his brother’s presence.

After three sweeps of the paltry area he almost gave in. He was wasting precious time that he could be using to scour the streets and back lanes for Sammy.

Time.

Dean balked, thinking what it must have been like for his brother to see his own fate, to witness his own last breath knowing it was inevitable. You can change the future and I’m gonna prove it!

Dean grabbed the Impala’s keys from the table he’d dropped them on and was headed back out the door when a small wall calendar snagged his attention.

Calendar.

Sam had spoken of a calendar in his dream. He hadn’t been specific, but the elder hunter distinctly recalled the mention of some New Jersey Airfreight company and low flying aircraft. That meant Sammy was going to die in or near an airport.

Not die. I’m gonna save him!

Dean felt his face begin to redden and his eyes ached from fighting the urge to tear up. There was no time for sentiment. No time to act anything less than a one hundred percent tough, heartless son of a bitch.

A shadow moved past the motel door and the hunter instinctively reached for his gun. Just because Sam wasn’t here didn’t mean Haris hadn’t sent another cult goon after him. When the stranger walked on by, stopping to unlock the next room, Dean exhaled and let his hand drop to his side.

On impulse, he backed out of the motel and approached his unknown neighbor, a confident smile hiding the terror inside he was feeling for his brother. “Hi, there,” he offered flashing a friendly, yet not too familiar grin. “I was wondering if you were from around these parts? I’m kinda looking for an airport big enough to carry freight planes? Ross Air Freight ring any bells?”

The woman in her twenties shrugged, the brown paper shopping bags in her arms hiding most of her features with their overflowing contents. “Teterboro carries freight, if you’re looking for something smaller than Newark International…”

Dean bit into his bottom lip, torn between which airport to head for. “You sure they carry freight? Any abandoned buildings?”

The petite redhead set down her bags and looked the hunter up and down as if she was suddenly concerned for her safety. Her hands trembled just a little as she slid her room key into the lock while nodding. “Lots of hangars out there. That’s all I know…”

“Okay, thanks…” Dean turned and felt his own hands begin to shake. The girl might be in fear of her life, but he was in fear for his brother’s, and right now Sammy was the only one in any real danger.

Jogging the short distance to his beloved Chevy, Dean didn’t even return to lock the swinging motel door he’d recently vacated. Instead, he cranked the Impala and made an educated guess as to where Sam had headed.

If Teterboro was the wrong choice, it would be a decision Dean regretted for the rest of his life.

But then, if anything happened to Sammy, that wouldn’t be all that long a time to lament.

Abandoned Hangar
Teterboro Airport, NJ
00hrs 04mins

Sam can hear it. The clock ticking.

Tick, tick, tick.

His final moments counting down in rhythmic staccato bursts that echo around the cavernous hangar.

It hadn’t been hard to find this place. Ross Air Freight, NJ. Airplanes overhead. Didn’t take a genius to work out he was looking for somewhere near an airport.

Although in his experience, Teterboro could only loosely be described as such.

Still, at least security around here wasn’t as tight as it would have been had Sam’s vision taken him to Newark International, which he guessed was something of a blessing.

He didn’t feel very blessed right now though, standing amidst the debris of a company that had gone out of business months earlier in a hangar haunted more by the absence of the living than the presence of the dead. The only objects strewn around were empty packing cases and random pieces of broken metal, twisted and unidentifiable, and even the light breeze outside howled through the broken skylights above his head.

Sam wondered who’d been changing the calendar.

Because there it was on the wall, May page fluttering as a slight draft from the doorway stirred the musty air; just as he’d seen it in his vision.

He almost laughed out loud at the irony of it all.

The quiet library where the big trucker had dropped him off had given up its secrets so easily, and it hadn’t taken him long to discover that this dead place now belonged to one Luciano Ferinacci.

Fate.

That’s what it was.

Fate makes bitches of us all…

That made Sam smile too because he heard his own thought in Dean’s voice, even though he knew it was something Dean would never say.

Dean didn’t believe in Fate. Didn’t believe in Destiny. Sam wasn’t even sure Dean believed in himself.

Dean believed in Sam.

And he believed in Dad.

And he believed in Family.

Because in the end that was all Dean had left to believe in.

Sam felt his legs begin to tremble, almost buckling beneath his weight, and right then – right then – he would have given anything to have seen Dean come bursting through the door, pissed off scowl on his face. You ditched me, Sammy…

Because in the end, Family was all Sam had left to believe in too.

But when the door opened, it wasn’t Dean who entered.

“Happy birthday, Sammy.”

Sam could hear the clock ticking, the sound magnified to thunderous proportions, and somewhere in the distance he heard the sound of another clock striking midnight.

Happy birthday, Sam…

Sam had never liked that prickly sensation of déjà vu his visions were wont to invoke in him whenever he watched them play out before his eyes. He blinked as the strip light guttered overhead, memories of Max Miller, a gun, and his brother’s brain matter splattered across a suburban bedroom wall ghosting behind his retinas.

He recognized Haris without prompting this time as he strode purposefully into the building: his expensively-tailored suit, polished shoes, loudly ticking wristwatch. Sam could hear it even from this distance, ticking down the last few beats of his heart.

“I admire punctuality in young people these days,” Haris was saying, tapping his watch casually as he sauntered toward Sam’s position, a crooked sneer curling his current host’s lips. “It’s a pity that tiresome brother of yours doesn’t share your sense of good time-keeping.”

Sam’s jaw clenched unconsciously, and he looked straight ahead – at the clock, the calendar, the crumbling wall; all exactly as they had appeared in his vision. “Why here?” he asked hollowly. “Why do we have to do this here?”

Haris arched a dark eyebrow. “I didn’t choose this place, Sam,” he said. “You did. I merely followed you here. I thought this must simply be where you’d chosen to be when your time was up.”

Sam glanced at him uncertainly. “Why the hell would I choose to die here?” he demanded, wondering fleetingly whether his vision had led him here or whether he had led his vision.

Straight to a property owned by Luciano Ferinacci…

Fate?

Destiny?

Random coincidence?

He knew Dean would favor the latter, but he himself wasn’t so sure.

“Death’s a relative concept, Sam,” Haris informed him. “There are many ways to die that don’t require your heart stops beating.”

Sam shook his head impatiently. “I don’t have the time or the inclination to listen to your existential bull right now,” he snapped. “Or had you forgotten? A deal’s a deal, right?” He straightened. “So let’s get this over with.”

“You’re right, of course,” Haris agreed, blinking yellow eyes in gleeful anticipation. “A deal is indeed a deal. And here I am to collect. You don’t need to remind me, Sam. I’ve had this day circled in big red Sharpie on my calendar for quite some time now…”

Sam squinted at him. “Why?” he demanded. “What’s so damned important about me? What the hell do you plan on doing with me?”

“Damned? Hell?” Haris frowned. “I hope you’re not damned yet, Sam, or this would all be rather pointless. As for Hell… Well, that’s all a matter of perspective I suppose, isn’t it? Perspective and time… They say time heals, but in my experience time can only hurt you. Eternities of it, stretching out in front of you, filled with fire and with pain and with something so much worse than death.” He met Sam’s defiant gaze with a sneer. “Don’t worry, Sam, I’m not going to blow the ending for you. Suffice it to say that that was not how I intended to spend my Eternity. I have far better things to do with my time up here than I ever could have down there…”

“Like raising an army?” Sam asked, gritting his teeth and praying that wasn’t how he was going to be spending his Eternity.

Haris smiled malevolently. “It’s not as simple as my offering you a job, Sam,” he said. “Of course, that’s one way this could play out.”

“What do you want from me?” Sam snapped, his patience wearing extremely thin.

Haris laughed mirthlessly. “Body and soul, Sam,” he said. “Body and soul. For now, all I want is to take that big neon ‘kick me’ sign from off of your back. You don’t even realize you’re wearing it, do you? So much power and you have absolutely no idea you have it, much less what to do with it.” He took a step closer, gingerly lifting a hand toward his prey as Sam fought the urge to take a step back. “But your daddy knows, Sammy. You should ask him about it someday. Oh wait. Silly me. You’re never going to see Daddy again, are you?”

Sam swallowed. “What – what do you mean?” he stammered. “What does he know?”

“Not everything,” Haris admitted. “Bits and pieces. Theories. Gut instinct. He always knew you were – tainted – somehow, Sam. He knew there were things out here in the dark that would come looking for you… Why do you think he risked sacrificing your big brother’s entire sense of self worth by drilling it into him that he had to protect your life even above his own? Why do you think he was so adamant you shouldn’t strike out by yourself to attend Stanford? Because he knew, Sam. He knew how much danger you would be in alone and unprotected. He knew how important you were going to be someday, the part you would one day have to play in all of this…”

Sam tried to remember to breathe. “What – what part?” he forced himself to ask, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.

“Right now?” Haris asked. “A hypothetical one. The things you could have done – the things you could have been if only you’d submitted to my will. But you had your chance, Sam, and you blew it. That was a one time only offer and I’m afraid I’m the jealous possessive type: If I can’t have you, no one can. It’s a shame, as I do so hate to see potential wasted.” He shrugged dismissively. “But hey, life’s a bitch, huh?” He took another step toward Sam, palm raised until it was hovering near the taller man’s forehead. “Actually, death’s pretty much a bitch too, but you’ll find that out for yourself soon enough.”

Sam swallowed. “So are you finished now?” he asked, mock-boredom in his voice. “Or are you gonna talk me to death? Because if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather we just got this over with.”

Haris smiled, wide as a Cheshire cat. “Not much for foreplay, are we Sammy?” His hand continued to hover over Sam’s forehead, the palm beginning to glow a sickly yellow. “But far be it from me too keep you from your next appointment.” He sighed contentedly. “Alrighty then. Happy death day, Sam…”

****

Get away from him you yellow eyed freak!

Dean wanted to scream the words across the hangar as he shoved open the door of what had once been Ross Air Freight and froze at the sight of Haris’ latest incarnation standing with a glowing hand raised toward his kid brother’s head.

But the words wouldn’t come out, the pounding in his head and his chest drowning out all rational thought but the one instinctual drive to run.

And Dean ran.

Straight out into the hangar, heedless of his own safety, able to think only of getting to his brother before Haris could take him away.

Just as two loud bangs brought him skidding to an abrupt halt.

Haris’ host didn’t move for a second, a look of almost amused surprise seemingly flash frozen on his pale face as the bullet sliced clean through him, front to back, lodging somewhere near his spine.

He glanced down, hand still hovering near Sam’s face, and when he glanced back up he noticed the boy appeared almost as shocked as he was.

“Well would you look at that,” he murmured, crimson blood beginning to seep through his immaculate white shirt as his knees buckled beneath him.

He snatched out a hand to grip Sam’s shoulder in an attempt to remain on his feet.

But Sam was falling too.

“Sam!”

The single word tore from Dean’s throat, and he was off running again, heedless of the bullets pinging off the concrete near his feet and whipping past his head, able to concentrate on one thing and one thing only: Sam, collapsing to the ground, injured. But to what extent, Dean couldn’t tell.

“Sammy!”

Dean slid to an unceremonious crumple as a bullet whizzed past his ear, coming to a stop on his knees at Sam’s side. “Sam, talk to me!”

Sam’s eyes blinked wide, not looking at Dean, but rather at Haris’ host, who was stretched out flat on his back at Sam’s feet, spine suddenly arching up off the ground as a billowing cloud of black vapor erupted from his mouth, tearing a scream of panic from deep within him.

“Goddammit!” Dean growled, following his brother’s gaze angrily. “One of these days that sonofabitch is gonna stick around long enough for me to waste his ass.”

As the cloud of blackness made its escape through a broken skylight way up in the high ceiling, Dean returned his attention to his brother, grabbing him by the shoulder. “Sam?”

Sam winced, clutching at his upper arm where a scarlet stain was slowly darkening the sleeve of his shirt.

Dean tried to get a look at the wound just as another bullet pinged off the concrete near Sam’s leg, and he was instantly on his feet, grabbing the back of Sam’s collar and dragging him bodily the couple of feet they needed to make it to a pile of sturdy old packing crates.

Ducking down, Dean pulled Sam in next to him, the younger brother looking too stunned to protest at the manhandling, instead fixing Dean with a befuddled stare as he drew his Desert Eagle and began squinting off into the distance over the top of the crates.

“What the hell?” Dean ground out. “Sniper attack? Well that’s just peachy. Like we’ve not got enough to deal with right now…”

Another round blew up a plume of dust an inch from Haris’ former host’s head, and Dean glanced back to see him staring up at the ceiling, breathing labored and shallow.

Dean hesitated for the briefest of instants before breaking cover, dashing over to where the host lay sprawled out in the open and grabbing him by the arm.

“Dean!” he heard Sam yell in alarm, but was already dragging the stricken man back toward the cover of the packing crates, much as he had Sam.

He glanced back at his brother once he was sure the three of them were relatively protected. “You okay Sammy?”

Sam squeezed at his bleeding bicep, even in his dazed state knowing enough to keep pressure on the wound. “Just winged me,” he assured his brother, the shock of still being here, still breathing, fogging his already befuddled thought processes.

Dean grinned at him. “So it’s your birthday and you’re not dead yet.” he pointed out. “So much for Fate.” The relief flooding his eyes was almost too much for Sam to bear right then, and he nearly flinched when his brother reached out and patted his cheek affectionately. “Happy birthday, Sammy!”

A choked laugh escaped Sam’s lips. “Thanks man,” he said quietly.

“Savor it while you can, dude,” Dean added. “’Cause you ever try and ditch me like that again, you won’t be seeing another one.”

Sam frowned briefly. “Dean, I –”

Dean shook his head at him and held up a hand. “Angst me later, man,” he said. “We got more pressing problems –”

As if in response, another volley of gunfire ripped through the air above their heads, just as Dean ducked down to check on the status of Haris’ host.

He peered carefully at the bloodstains blossoming across the man’s chest, felt his weak and thready pulse. This guy wasn’t long for this world.

And he knew it.

His breathing was becoming more erratic and labored, as if he simply couldn’t get any air into his lungs, and as Dean leaned over him, he suddenly darted out a hand, grabbing the younger man’s t-shirt and pulling him down toward him with a strength he really shouldn’t still have possessed.

“Whoa, take it easy there, champ!” Dean stammered in mild surprise, trying to prize the man’s desperate grip from off of his shirt. “It’s gonna be okay,” he added, trying to soften his voice. “We’ll get you some help –”

“I’m – beyond help,” the man whispered through bloodied lips. “I was dead the moment that thing –” he tried to take down another rattling breath, “– took me!”

“It’s okay,” Dean repeated, trying to calm the guy down, trying to make his voice as soothing as he could while all the time trying not to compare the way this man was looking at him to the way Meg had looked at him – after. “It was a nightmare…” He swallowed. “You’re gonna be okay,” he assured the man. “We’ll get you out of here –”

“Listen to me, hunter!” The man burst out, blood bubbling on his lips as he somehow managed to yank Dean even closer.

Dean blinked in surprise, his silence seeming to calm Haris’ former host, who took several short breaths before continuing.

“I have a message for you,” he wheezed. “From that – that creature. He – he may not have taken your brother as he wished – may not have extinguished his light – but – but – he has still defeated you!”

Dean frowned. “How?” he demanded, all attempts at comforting the man forgotten. “He’s gone and Sammy’s still –” he waved a hand in his brother’s direction, who was now leaning hard against the packing crate, skin pale and clammy. Dean blinked again, this time in concern at Sam’s unnatural pallor. “Sammy?” he burst out. “You good?”

Sam groaned, leaning his forehead against the wooden crate. “Don’t – feel so good –” he mumbled.

“You – you’re just – it’s the blood loss,” Dean stated confidently, denial always coming easily to him when it came to Sam. “When we get you to a doctor –”

“No doctor can help him,” Haris’ former host ground out, dragging back Dean’s attention.

“What – what do you mean?” Dean barely dared ask.

“Haris has won. You and your brother are defeated. And – and he never even had to lay a hand on him – didn’t need to strip him of his powers – take his life – or – or cast him into Hell: A mere mortal has done that for him… Achieved what he could not.”

Dean glanced up as another couple of rounds impacted the concrete floor a few feet beyond their position. A glint of metal caught his eye, up near the ceiling, up on a steel gantry running the width of the hangar. “It’s just a flesh wound,” he mumbled, never taking his eyes off the gantry. “Sam’s gonna be fine –”

A gurgling noise refocused Dean’s attention back to the rigid figure of the man splayed out in front of him, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling as the light left his eyes as surely as the Demon had left his body.

“Hey!” He shook the man’s shoulders, more out of desperation than any hope he was still alive. “I don’t understand! It’s – it’s just a flesh wound –”

Another bullet ripped through one of the packing crates just to the left of Dean’s head, and he actually felt the heat of it graze his cheekbone.

He swore profusely before crawling back over to Sam, whose color didn’t seem to be improving.

“Sammy –?”

“Just a little dizzy,” Sam assured him with a wave of his hand. “I think – I think there’s a bad guy needs taking care of…”

Another round took out a corner of the crate nearest Sam, and Dean nodded his agreement. “Yeah, you could be right, dude.” He put a hand on Sam’s shoulder, pinning him with his most authoritative stare. “Stay down, okay? I don’t need you getting your head blown off trying to play hero.”

Sam smiled weakly. “’Cause if anyone’s gonna get to play hero, it’s gonna be you, right?”

Dean grinned big and wide. “You bet your skinny ass! Big brother’s prerogative.”

Sliding out his Desert Eagle, he gingerly inched backwards toward a twisted hunk of heavily listing metal that he suspected had once upon a time been a shelving unit.

Ducking behind the makeshift shelter as another couple of rounds pinged off the floor between himself and Sam, he drew in a breath before diving for the shadows in a dark corner of the hangar, clinging to the wall as he carefully backed up until he was standing at the foot of a ladder leading up to the metal gantry.

Another bullet impacted one of the crates with a thud, and, satisfied that meant he’d not yet been detected, he scooted up the ladder as fast as his injured hand would allow, pulling himself up onto the metal walkway and crouching for a second as he again tried to gauge whether the sniper had seen him.

Yet another round whizzed over Sam’s head, and Dean took that as his cue, jumping to his feet and virtually sprinting along the narrow walkway until he neared the position of a black-clad figure lying flat on his stomach across the gantry, one eye pressed to the scope of a high-powered rifle, a carton of what looked like custom-made rounds lying close to his left hand.

Moving as stealthily as he was able, Dean carefully edged toward him, hoping to hell the guy didn’t choose that moment to look away from the scope. When he was within striking distance, he took a short breath before carefully bending down and pressing the cool steel of his handgun against the exposed flesh at the back of the sniper’s neck.

The sniper tensed, drawing back from the rifle as he half turned toward Dean.

“Uh-uh-uh,” Dean chided him. “Just you lie still there dude or we’re gonna have a serious falling out.”

The sniper froze, hands relinquishing their grip on the rifle as he raised them carefully above his head.

“That’s better,” Dean said, distractedly eyeing a couple of fresh rounds that had spilled out of the carton. He squinted, more taken with the odd designs etched into the shell casing than the fact that they looked hollow-tipped, and he had no idea why a sniper would be using hollow-tipped rounds.

Come to think of it, he had no idea why this particular sniper was here at all.

“You here for us or for him?” he asked, nodding in the direction of Haris’ fallen host.

An odd smile played across the sniper’s wide lips, and he turned ever-so-slightly, big brown eyes narrowed. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with, do you kid?” he sneered. “How d’you know I’m not here for all of you?”

Dean smiled icily before planting a booted foot squarely between the guy’s shoulder blades.

The sniper grunted and blew out a breath.

“If that’s true,” Dean said, game face virtually nailed in place, “then who the hell would be after us and that yellow-eyed freakshow?” He dug the heel of his boot in a little harder.

The sniper sucked in a breath. “You made an enemy today, boy,” he said. “My boss doesn’t like being made a fool of.”

The penny suddenly dropping, Dean burst out, “Ferinacci? You’re one of his bitches?” He shrugged, chuckling gleefully. “Yeah well, we did kinda make his goon squad look like Amateur Hour with the Keystone Cops…”

“You really don’t have a clue what you’ve gotten yourself into, do you?” the sniper grunted.

“All I know is the Big Bad Demon just turned tail and ran – or – or billowed,” he frowned before shrugging, dismissively. “Whatever. My brother’s still in one piece, and if that demonic piece o’ crap comes anywhere near him again I got a means of kicking his scaly ass all the way back to Hell. And then some. And all thanks to your boss.”

“I wouldn’t be popping open the champagne and celebrating your brother’s birthday just yet, Dean,” the sniper said, causing Dean to draw his brows together uncertainly and redistribute his weight onto his back foot. “I told you, you made an enemy today,” the sniper continued. “When you make an enemy of Luciano Ferinacci, it’s for life.” He sneered. “So at least Sammy won’t have too long to worry about it.”

Dean blanched, for a second forgetting altogether to grind his foot into the sniper’s back. “What – what are you talking about?” he snapped. “Sam’s fine. It’s a flesh wound. No biggie. I stitched up worse tons of times. Doesn’t even really need a doctor…”

“No human doctor can save your brother, Dean Winchester.”

Dean was pretty sure his heart stopped beating right there, the words of Haris’ host still ringing loud in his ears. No doctor can help him…

His attention drifted to the carton of rifle shells and he bent to retrieve one, turning it over in his fingers as he again began to wonder about the odd engravings on the casing. Familiar yet – not.

“Hollow-tipped rounds,” the sniper confirmed his earlier suspicions helpfully. “They got a little extra sting inside of ’em. My boss’s own special recipe.” He twisted, leering up at Dean horribly. “Almost as good as his spaghetti sauce. But a hell of a lot more deadly.”

A cold heat began to stir in Dean’s stomach, fingers of ice creeping up his spine. “What did you –?”

“Not the nicest way to go, I’m afraid,” the sniper continued conversationally. “And there’s no cure. I’d give your brother a few hours at most.”

Dean almost choked on his own air supply.

“He’d have been better off if the Demon had taken him –”

That was the last thing the sniper got to say, as Dean abruptly brought his gun down on the back of the guy’s head with a resounding thunk.

For a second he just stood there frozen, rooted to the spot, eyes lingering on the bullet still clutched in his hand before drifting back to the unconscious sniper at his feet.

Just a flesh wound, he told himself, a mantra stuck on permanent repeat in his head. Just a flesh wound…

He gulped down a breath, yanking one of those oh-so-convenient cable ties out of the black canvas duffel containing the sniper’s gear before grabbing the guy’s wrists and binding them none-too-gently to the railing of the gantry.

Just a flesh wound…

And then he was running again, feet thudding hard against the metal walkway, not even noticing the pain lancing through his hand as he swung himself down onto the ladder and virtually threw himself at the concrete floor.

“Sam!”

He raced toward the packing crates, to the place where he’d left his brother, heart beating a deafening tattoo in his chest. “Sam!”

“What?” Sam looked up startled, an eyebrow raised in exasperation as Dean skidded to a kneeling position in front of him. “I’m still here, Dean. Right were you left me…!”

Dean nodded, frowning slightly as he examined his brother, trying not to let the panic show on his face although his fingers trembled uncontrollably.

“You look – better,” he managed, sounding too surprised for Sam’s liking.

Sam arched an eyebrow at that. “It’s only a flesh wound, Dean,” he said, repeating the words circling around in Dean’s head. “I’ve had worse.”

“I know, kiddo,” Dean said, and the tender use of that particular nickname alarmed Sam even more than the naked terror he suddenly detected in his brother’s wide eyes.

“Dean? Dean, what’s wrong?” When his brother didn’t answer, he added, “You got the bad guy, right?”

Dean nodded distractedly, his eyes skittering over to Haris’ former host. “Sure I did,” he said, his voice lacking its usual cocky bravado. “When we’re ready to go, I’ll drop the cops an anonymous tip – hopefully even New Jersey’s Finest will be able to connect the dots between a gunshot victim and a guy with a high-powered rifle.”

He didn’t look back at Sam as, without really knowing why he was doing it, he slowly moved toward Haris’ host, crouching down next to him and gingerly peeling back the man’s blood-soaked shirt to get a better look at the wound.

“Dean, what are you –?” Sam stopped short when he saw the network of tiny purple lines almost like thread veins spider-webbing out from the wound and discoloring the area surrounding the bullet hole. “What the hell is that?” he breathed, eyes widening as he recoiled part in revulsion and part in dread.

Again Dean didn’t answer, couldn’t even look at Sam, face ashen.

“Dean?” And suddenly Sam sounded all of six again and Dean felt like his heart was breaking into a million pieces.

Just a flesh wound…

“Dean?” Sam repeated. When Dean still didn’t look at him, just stared at the host’s chest while he chewed on his lower lip, more to stop it from trembling than anything else, Sam began to realize that something was wrong.

Very wrong.

“Those weren’t ordinary bullets were they?”

Dean looked up at him very slowly, shaking his head the tiniest fraction.

Sam swallowed, painfully hauling himself up onto his knees and making a grab for the sleeve of Dean’s jacket, just as a wave of dizziness caused him to sway dangerously.

Dean was instantly at his side, catching his uninjured arm to keep him from falling.

Sam wasn’t sure which of them was shaking more.

He forced open his eyes again, willing the nausea to pass. “Dean?” he repeated.

The older brother blinked several times, and Sam was shocked to see moisture gathering on his eyelashes. Dean didn’t cry. Dean never cried. Not without a damn good reason. Not unless…

“What is it?”

Dean adjusted his position so that he was looking right in Sam’s eyes, opened his mouth to say something, then abruptly closed it again with an audible click.

How do I do this? How the hell do I do this? I can’t…

Sam noted the way Dean’s focus dipped to his wounded arm and didn’t protest when his brother gently opened up the ragged tear in his shirt, pulling the fabric away so that he could better examine the strafe mark and the hole the bullet had left as it impacted his arm. It looked as if the round had passed right through, and Sam wasn’t wrong when he said he’d had worse.

However, looking down as Dean probed the injury with hesitant fingers, Sam’s breath caught in his throat as he realized his own flesh bore the same unnatural discoloring that marred Haris’ dead host’s chest. Gritting his teeth, he managed to hiss, “Just tell me, Dean.”

Dean took a deep shuddering breath, finally managing to meet Sam’s gaze and for a long moment just holding it.

After everything. After all they’d been through.

It couldn’t end like this.

It couldn’t.

“It’s poison, Sam,” he said at length, the undisguised tremor in his voice almost as unnerving to Sam as the way it cracked on his name.

Sam blinked. “P – poison?” he repeated. “What – what kind of –?” He never got to finish the sentence as Dean suddenly placed a firm hand on each of his shoulders, before pulling back slightly and looking him unflinchingly in the eye.

“It’s bad, Sam,” he said quietly, not letting his brother’s gaze wander for a second.

Sam took a breath. “How – how bad?”

“He said – he said no doctor could help you.” Dean’s voice was thick with fear, with regret, with loss and with the terror of that loss. “He said –”

“Dean?”

Dean wrapped his hand around the back of Sam’s neck and pulled him close, breathing his next words right into his brother’s ear.

“He said you’re gonna die, Sammy.”

To Be continued in Valhalla

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The Winchester Chronicles