The End Justifies the Means

By Alone Dreaming

Rating and Disclaimer: See first chapter.

Warnings: Angst, Mature Language

Dedication: For Steph because she's always there. Specially dedicated to Phx as proof that my Dean loves Sammy very, very much. Wink

Author's Note: Fourth in the series of twenty. That's about all. Oh- and none of these have been beta'd so be patient with me.


For him, the end justified the means, especially when it came to helping his brother.

When Sam was sixteen and he was twenty, one of their father's enemies brought down a curse on Sam. She was a voodoo mistress, talented, powerful and vengeful, and she knew precisely where her powers would be put to best use. At first, it seemed like Sam had a stomach virus. Two days later, however, when black came up with vomit and started coming from Sam's ears, it was scarily apparent that it wasn't. He sat next to his brother, watching this with horror, and realizing he had no idea what to do. Their father was away and none of the contacts he had were responding to his calls.

So he did the only thing he could do. He went off to hunt that bitch down.

The end justified the means, he told himself, as he began to seek where she was staying. He was still at Sam's bedside when he began to pinpoint the location and when he was relatively sure he had a fix, he brought Sam to the hospital. From there, he started his journey towards the dark swamps somewhere in the Florida Everglades. The end justified the means, his mind sang, as he hustled pool to get more gas and used fake credit cards to stay in hotels that clearly needed some real income. It was his mantra as he stole, fought, and cheated his way down to where the witch was located.

And it was exactly what he was thinking when he shot her six times in the chest and burned her. The end was Sam getting better and the means were quickly forgotten.

For him, there was no matter of conscience when it came to his brother being threatened. If something was going to hurt his Sammy, that sucker had better start watching its ass. If it meant he had to kill a person, a real, living, breathing person, in order to save his brother, he'd do it without a thought. If he had to lie and whore himself out to make it work, then that's just what he would do.

"How'd you manage it?" his brother asked hoarsely as they went back to the shoddy apartment they called home.

He snorted. "I'm not completely helpless without Dad, Sammy. I can hunt on my own." It wasn't what Sam meant and he knew it but he didn't provide any clearer answers.

Because with Sam, the means simply weren't important.