A/N: I was listening to Stars and Boulevards by Augustana (awesome song), and when I heard that stanza, I knew I just had to write a fanfic about it. Supernatural simply seemed to click, and this story was formed. The character is purposely vague, so you can make your own interpretations about who it is. R/R, I appreciate anything, flames included.
Look out, they're coming after us with big guns,
They're only gonna tell you all the bad things I've done
Even if the words they say aren't true, they've won,
And I'm left here dyin' in the sun
-Stars and Boulevards by Augustana
He shivered in the dank abandoned hotel, hand straying to a belt that no longer held a gun. It sucked, the man decided upon reflection. They had semi-automatic weapons, advanced and specifically made for their job. Each piece was guaranteed to work, each man was trained for days on how to shoot it straight. He had an entire SWAT team after him, and his only weapon – an old faithful pistol from ten years back – had been lost. Of course, when he had it, it was a good gun. While not as fancy, he kept it well-oiled, double checking each bit as he cleaned it deftly. It couldn't fire as fast, but he knew it intimately, knew just where to aim it to hit the target. It never failed, whether loaded with rock-salt, iron, silver, or any other substance - but he had lost it in the initial mad dash for escape when SWAT had barreled into the building.
Of course, part of it was his own fault. After his brother's death, he had become reckless, ignoring the warning signs and plain barreling through any traps they placed for him. He didn't care about his own survival – that was inconsequential. The only thing that kept him going was the next hunt, the promise that even if he couldn't save his brother he could still save someone else's. If they took that away from him, if they stuck him in a prison for the rest of his life, well then what was the point of living? He'd never been hopelessly trapped before, and he didn't plan on experiencing it. Of course, that didn't mean it was his first choice. No, plan A was to successfully evade SWAT and escape the abandoned hotel that (until recently) had hosted a nasty family of demons content to possess animals (or, too incompetent to posses humans).
His footsteps were nearly inaudible as he ghosted down the stairwell, watching every hallway and shadow for the faintest flicker of movement. He dodged past an open door, hiding by an overhang as he peered down the steps. Nothing. Apparently, SWAT was at the other end of the building. He darted down the rest of the stairs, heading towards the neon Emergency Escape sign and the door underneath it. His heart sped up as he neared freedom, the door looming up closer and closer. It was only a few steps until freedom, and he flung out an arm, not speeding down a bit – until the stairwell echoed with a smooth click and one man's very familiar voice; "Winchester!" he called, "Freeze!"
However, Winchester was prepared to do no such thing. Mind firmly set upon plan A, he kept up his dash for the door. He knew human nature, and he knew that Special Agent Henricksen, who had chased him from one end of the country to another, would be loath to end it with a bullet in the back in an abandoned stairwell. There would be no satisfaction, no praise from his superiors for killing him. There would only be half-whispered rumors and speculations about what had really happened in that stairwell. They would think it was an execution, by a man obsessed with finally capturing the criminal.
So with all of this in mind, Winchester continued to run. He was at the door, hands smacking firmly against the bar, pushing it open and letting the blinding sunlight flood back in and fill Henricksen's sight. He quickly dodged left, trying to get out of the doorway, but Henricksen reacted too fast. Despite the sudden light, he held his FBI-issue pistol in firm hands, and squeezed the trigger at where he guess Winchester's leg would be. The deafening crack echoed in the stairwell, but the bullet struck right across the side of his target's leg – a graze deep enough to be painful and force the man to falter, but not enough to make him stop.
With a heavy limp, the man who had dealt with serious cuts and bruises since childhood forced his protesting body on. The Impala was hidden only a few yards ahead in the overgrown backyard, and if he could reach it then he had confidence that he could escape. He hurried (since running was out of the question with his leg in such a state) and quickly ducked behind a row of trees parallel to the building as Henricksen barreled out of the same door, yelling something into the mouthpiece of his headset. Winchester ignored him, and rounded the clump of bushes to his car – where an FBI agent he'd never seen before stood no more than two feet away with a gun, already up and out of its holster.
He only hesitated for a millisecond before lunging at the man; perhaps the element of surprise could a be enough to avoid a bullet. The plan would have worked, had it not been for his injured leg. The agent was new and inexperience, terrified of meeting his first serial killer face-to-face. Had Winchester not stumbled and wasted that single second regaining his balance, he would have knocked the gun away before it fired. But he didn't, and the bullet buried itself into his chest just as Henricksen sprinted around the corner. He halted at the sound of the gunshot, cursing as Winchester crumbled to the ground. The new recruit trembled as he lowered his still-smoking gun. "He ran at me," he explained to Henricksen in a diminutive, shell-shocked voice. "I had to."
Henricksen knelt down by the perp, helping him roll onto his back. "We needed him alive! We needed him to confess! We need to know where his sonovabitch brother went to!" He knelt beside the felled man and pressed a hand over the wound in a useless attempt to stop the bleeding as the fugitive wheezed in pain. Winchester tried to laugh, but it came out as a weak cough. "These shots always hurt the most." He brought up a blood-stained hand, marveling as the sticky-wet substance shimmered slightly in the bright sun. "I'm not surviving this, man." The older agent growled as he tore off his jacket and held it to the wound, adding more pressure. "Shut up. You're gonna live through this, and then we are gonna throw you where you belong. Call for an ambulance!" He barked the last bit at the immobile man standing off to the side, who numbly held his headset closer in response, stuttering out a call for help. "W-we need an ambulance, behind the building. The uh, p-perp is down, repeat, the perp is down an-an' bleeding out fast."
Winchester gasped as it became more and more painful to draw breath. "Give it up, Henricksen. It's over." He looked up at the blinding sun, and was it just his imagination or were the corners of his vision fading into white? "It's all over." No, it was creeping closer, blocking of his peripheral vision and edging further and further in. A soft, sad smile curved the corners of his lips as the wind blew, rustling the leaves of the sparse plants. It was the last thing he heard, before a ringing filled his ears. Henricksen was talking above him, but he didn't have the energy to try to read his lips. He just let go, the sun searing his corneas before he closed them forever.