All right. Hard to believe that it's been a whole two days since I last posted. It seems like an eternity since I'm so used to posting every day...

Thanks so much for the awesome reviews, guys. They really do make my day!

Chapter Three

The Happening

Dean leaned back on the couch, propping his feet up on a shaky pile of dust-covered books. He'd come to the conclusion since arriving at Bobby's for a short break that the older man definitely needed a little table in what counted as a living room. Books made horrible footrests.

He grabbed the remote, flipping channels on a television that apparently hadn't been used since the eighties. Imaged blurred past, but none of them could hold his attention, not like the thing sitting in the other room could.

The thing in question was Sam, of course, his face stuffed into a yellowing tome as he did whatever it was that he did when he wasn't angsting over something or being all emo. Dean had a feeling that he knew exactly what his brother was doing, and it wasn't something good. He was looking for trouble, trouble that started with a capital 'L' and stared out at the world through once-innocent eyes turned deadly white.

He didn't have the heart to stop the kid, though. He never had, not until things had gotten down to the wire and hellfire leapt into view. But that had been a matter of life and half-life, good and evil, and this was just research. After all, no harm ever came from reading a book.

He smiled, staring through the open doorway at his geek of a brother, wondering exactly what kind of Hell the younger man had been through in his absence. He glanced down at his own chest, running a hand absently over the small scars that criss-crossed his skin under his shirt, the newly repaired tattoo that promised to protect him from possession.

What kind of Hell? Try stitching what was left of his brother back together again, then doing… something to get him back. They hadn't really talked about it, but Dean had to admit that he was curious. From what he'd gathered, Sam had just meditated, meditated straight into the pit.

That still didn't explain everything, though. It didn't explain the new spark of fear in Ruby's stolen eyes, the speed with which she had fled the cabin once Sam had given her the go-ahead. Once Sam had ordered her out.

It didn't explain the nose bleeds that followed his brother's journey into the flames, the droplets of blood that leaked from his nostrils off and on for nearly a week.

It sure as Hell didn't explain what Dean had felt down there, what had happened. He wasn't sure how to describe it exactly, just knew that it wasn't what he'd expected, that in that single instant, that moment when Sam latched on and they fell, he'd known things. He'd felt things. He'd sensed things.

He was positive now that his brother could tap into whatever that demon had put inside of him, activate it, and still remain Sam. Their father had been wrong in his assumption that the youngest family member would go dark side. Dean knew that, had sensed it, had felt it written across his brother's soul in big red letters that promised not to lie.

He knew what Sam had sent into Hell to get him out. It was the only thing that a person could send to Hell. Dean had been rescued by his brother's soul.

He knew that it sounded crazy, and that was the exact reason he would never tell Sam, but he was sure of it. He'd seen his brother's soul. It wasn't dark, wasn't deadly, wasn't evil. There were no imperfections. It was pure, unmarred, good. And it had saved him.

While they had been falling, as chains and death and destruction and hopelessness swam around them, he had curled up against his brother, the soft skin, the warm breath, the all-encompassing grasp of something strong and safe and loving. He had only spent two weeks in Hell, according to Sam, but it had seemed like an eternity. He'd leaned into his brother, leaned into Sam's soul, and learned everything that he'd needed to quell any fears he might have.

In that single moment, the time between the shredding of his imaginary hands and the drop back into his carefully repaired body, he'd seen into his brother's soul. He'd seen Sam fixing him, had felt the raw pain, the fear, the uncertainty. He'd seen Ruby flinching away as something sharp and strong and new was unleashed upon her. He'd seen and felt the goodness that Sam didn't know he possessed, the control that he could have if he only tried.

He'd seen his brother's soul, felt his brother's heart, and then he got cold for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime. He'd sat up, gotten out a few raspy, muddled questions, and then pain had burned through his body, and all thoughts of Hell, of souls, of potential were wiped from his mind. There was only pain, only cold, only Sam.

He watched the younger man through the doorway and wondered if, in that moment when Sam had caught him, when they'd been connected, tumbling through space and time and hellfire, he'd experienced the same thing. He wondered if Sam had seen him, felt him, known him. He was scared of that.

While Sam had been pure, unmarked, and good, Dean had been bloody, sweaty, tortured. He'd been broken. He had secrets- horrible, burning secrets. He had wants- horrible, selfish wants. He wasn't a bad person, just… not perfect. Not whole. He was ripped and shredded, unreal bones poking through the flesh of a tarnished soul. In a word, he deemed himself unworthy.

If Sam had felt something like that, though, he hadn't said anything. And who knew, maybe he'd been protected by what he was? Maybe his willingness to be there, his mission of salvation, had saved him from getting an unkindly glimpse at big brother.

Maybe Dean had actually lucked out for once in his life.

He turned his attention away from Sam and back to the TV, deciding that it was probably better not to wonder too much about his daring rescue. He turned up the volume, flipping through a couple of channels before settling on CNN. Sam was convinced that a group of elementals had been plaguing the Midwest, causing horrible flooding and an unusually high number of twisters. Dean argued that Mother Nature was simply a bitch, but Sam had given him the puppy-dog eyes and he'd promised to keep tabs on the nation's natural disasters.

He turned up the volume a bit more as Sam wandered into the room, plopping down on the couch beside him and staring at the TV. "Anything new?"

"Levee's down in Des Moines. They keep flashing pictures of that campsite, too. Damn tents stood up against the thing, but the whole building crumbled. You ever hear of anything like that?"

Sam shook his head. "No. What about the rest of the country?"

"Activity's still stationed in the same place. I'm thinking it's just Tornado Alley."

"Dean-"

"Unless you want to start looking into every quake in Asia? Who knows, maybe Godzilla decided to make an appearance after all."

"No-"

"Or how about the fires out in California? Could be a dragon."

"Dean, look." Sam pointed at the screen, where the boring newscaster had stopped talking about tornadoes and started in about something else. "Turn it up some more."

The older man did as he was told, leaning forward to watch the news report. The pictures themselves were disconcerting enough, showing long funeral processions intersecting on their ways to different cemeteries, men in white biohazard suits pushing covered tables down halls, entire floors in hospitals under quarantine.

"This is an outbreak like one we've never seen before," the newscaster said, taking a moment to pull a handkerchief out of his pocket and blow his nose. There was just a hint of fear in his eyes as he sniffled. "We're here with Stuart Andros, a private practice doctor out of Cincinnati. Tell us, Doctor, what are we looking at here?"

The picture changed to show a man in his mid-forties, his eyes tired and bloodshot, skin pale, hair graying. "We're looking at a pandemic, Larry. At first it was thought that, whatever this was, it was prevalent only in America, but there are now reports popping up in Japan, England, Greece, and Scotland."

The brothers looked at each other, confusion in both their eyes. They'd barely been at Bobby's for a week, had been watching the news reports steadily, but they hadn't heard anything about people getting sick.

"And what are some of the symptoms that people should look for, Doctor?" the newscaster asked, pulling the Winchesters' attention back to the screen.

"Apparently," Andros said, "this is some recently mutated string of the flu. It has diverse symptoms, everything from a runny nose and watery eyes to coughing and vomiting."

"Is it treatable?"

The doctor paused, licking his lips, trying to hold back a stray cough. "As far as I know, the CDC is all over this thing. They're looking for the active strain to try and develop a vaccine, like they would for the typical strains of influenza."

"And how's that going?"

Andros averted his eyes, looking down at his hands, which he'd clasped together on the desk in front of him. "I've treated a few of these patients myself," he admitted slowly, "and we've done autopsies and blood work on all of them."

"What are you finding," the newscaster asked, "if it's in your power to tell the public?"

"Nothing. We're not finding anything, Larry. When the patients come in, they seem to have an elevated level of sulfur in the bloodstream-"

"And that's bad?" Larry interrupted.

"Not necessarily. Anyone in high school chemistry can tell you that all humans have trace amounts of sulfur in them. To be completely honest, the levels that we found weren't even that high, comparatively. There doesn't seem to be any connection, at least."

"Not that you can see," Dean muttered, his mind going back to the incident in River Grove, the town taken over by insane, infected people, and his brother's immunity.

"And after the deaths, any extra sulfur seems to disappear. We've tried to isolate the strain after death, wanting to cause as little distress to the patients as necessary, but it just seems to vanish."

"People are dying?" Sam asked, glancing at his brother before turning back to the TV. Dean turned it up some more.

"How fatal is this particular strain of the flu?" Larry asked, his voice quiet, scared.

"As far as we know," Dr. Andros said, "every case is fatal… and there seems to be a very high communicability rate."

"How high?"

Andros cleared his throat. "Around ninety-nine per cent."

The camera cut back to the newscaster, who was staring out at the viewers with wide, glassy eyes- the eyes of a sick man. "That's high," he whispered, "that's very high."

Dean aimed the remote at the television and hit the power button, silencing Larry and his guest. He set the remote down on the couch and scrubbed a hand over his face. "That is high," he muttered.

"And fatal," Sam added, "don't forget fatal."

"But, you know, hey, maybe we'll finally luck out over something and land in that one per cent, huh?"

Sam turned to him, his face devoid of hope. "You really think that's possible?"

"No. I think we're both gonna die. Again."

The younger man grinned. "You realize we're the only people in the world that can truthfully say that?"

Dean chuckled. "Our lives are weird."

"Afterlives are weirder."

That earned a laugh from big brother, and it didn't take Sam long to join in. For a moment in time, it was like nothing had changed, like Sam had never left, John had never died, Jake had never become a traitor, and Dean had never revealed what he believed to be his worth. For just a minute, they were simply brothers, just living life, having a good time. And then they heard the cough.

Both boys stopped laughing immediately, their faces paling at the harsh sound following so closely on the heels of the depressing news report. They stared at each other, waiting for the admission, the simple statement of sickness, the beginning of a whole new worry. When neither brother fessed up, they both turned.

Bobby had just walked through the front door, grease coating his hands and shirt. He took a handkerchief out of his back pocket and blew his nose. He turned to see Sam and Dean staring at him, their mouths agape, unable to believe what some second-rate newshound and his hack of a guest had said now that it was staring them so blatantly in the face.

"You boys all right?" Bobby asked, attempting to wipe his hands clean on his jeans and failing miserably. They just kept staring. "What is it?"

"You coughed," Dean said at exactly the same time Sam uttered, "you sneezed."

Bobby blinked. "That a crime?"

Dean was the first to really break from his stupor. "Are you sick?"

Bobby shrugged. "Touch of the flu, I think." He shook his head, as if dismissing the conversation, and then headed up to his room to get cleaned up before dinner, leaving the brothers to silently stare at each other and face their closest friend's fast-approaching mortality.

... And now all the Bobby fans hate me. Well, that sucks...