The Coming – chpt 4.

By: sifi.

OOooOO

Dean glanced out of the mini-mart door, Sam's silhouette visible in the passenger window, sleeping, dreaming, playing possum? He wasn't sure, but the important thing was that he was in the car.

"Hey! Thank god I got you," he breathed easier but lowered his voice as he moved into one of the aisles scanning the snackage. "A couple things, I need an herb, something deadly but easy to get my hands on." He listened and nodded picking a bag of flame Cheetos, then moved along, "Okay… How deadly is it? Uh huh, uh huh. Yeah." He grabbed a bag of Jack's Links beef jerky then headed for the register snagging a couple bottles of soda along the way, "Okay, really? That fast? Wow, and that little huh? Good. Alright then. Thanks… hey… keep your phone on and close. I might need some help real soon. Yeah," he smiled softly and paid the clerk, "Me too, and thanks."

He took a deep steadying breath before exiting the mart and returning to the car. The less Sam knew the better.

He's his SON! A very angry voice inside him cried, "I know." He breathed. You can't do this! That angry voice screamed. There really wasn't a reply for that.

OOooOO

Holy Family Hospital.

Papers were filed, the police were notified, the security tapes scoured and an amber alert issued for the missing Baby Boy Richards. Nearest blood relatives were sought. None existed.

Very little other action would take place on his behalf. There were just too many other missing children to consider.

OOooOO

Sam's brows furrowed and his mouth puckered as Dean looked left then right then strode up the walk looking very much like someone going to buy some crack. The only difference was this house was well tended, well manicured and in an upper middle class neighborhood.

"What're you doing Dean?" he muttered softly.

Earlier he'd tried to take refuge from what they were about to do, in sleep. But that proved to be a bad move. He woke up with his heart pounding and breath stuck in his throat.

He'd dreamed of a house not too different from the one they should have grown up in, hours later the images still wouldn't leave him be.

Sun shone bright through fluttering birch leaves, a shaft struck him in the eye but he smiled at it.

"C'mon dad, throw it!"

"Alright, this one's a classic knuckle ball," Sam rolled the ball, feeling for the stitching, then set his fingers and wound up. He brought his knee up into his chest, a look of wonder crossed his boy's face. He had Lily's facial structure but Sam's eyes and smile. He was a beautiful boy who brought joy with him wherever he went.

Sam's leg came out and down and he gave the ball a solid throw, but nowhere near the powerhouse pitch he'd feigned.

Horsehide hit leather with a solid snap and his young voice shouted excitedly, "I caught it! I caught it dad!"

"Good job tiger! You nailed it." Sam grinned watching the boy, whose name he suddenly knew was Neil, toss the ball up into the air and catch it while racing across the lawn. He leaped into Sam's arms warm and bright and full of life.

"Uncle Dean's coming." The boy's expression faltered as a dark orange glow passed quickly through his eyes. "He's worried." His eyes met Sam's, "Should I go get my bag?"

Sam kissed his temple then put him down. "Yeah, go get your bag."

And sure enough the Impala turned the corner just three houses down, the glass pack chop followed quickly as Dean sped to the curb, a hint of a fishtail as he jammed the brakes the only real tell-tale sign he was worried.

"Sam!" he leaped out of the drivers' door.

Sam startled at the sight, his brother's hair had gone mostly silver, and though he still kept it short and spiked, the goatee he'd taken to wearing still showed reddish brown on his face and belied his true age. 'Christ he's got another month before he hits 40… I'm so sorry Dean.' And part of him had a horrible weighty feeling of desperation deep inside his belly. Something that told him whatever it was that he and Dean had been through in the last 7 years, had been harder on his big brother than he'd realized.

"He's getting his go-bag. What's up?" Sam asked moving to his big brother and grasping him in a quick tight hug the older man easily and happily returned.

"You've been made. Has he been using his… abilities?"

"Not that I'm aware of. What's happening?"

"The others, I don't know how…" Dean frowned shaking his head.

"Crowhawk you think?" Sam asked. He didn't want to voice the other alternative, but knew Dean would.

"Or Bobby."

"Crowhawk's in a fucking coma, who the hell is reading him? And Bobby's in a fucking wheelchair…" Sam ran his hands through his hair.

"You know a wheelchair aint' gonna hold Bobby down." Dean wrapped his hand around Sam's neck and pulled his head down.

They stood foreheads pressed together, breathing in sync, both of them with red, misty eyes.

"Dean…" Sam sniffed, his breath shuddered in his chest.

"Sam…" Dean's voice issued the familiar warning, "No."

"DAAAAAAD!" the scream sounded launching the brothers toward the house as if they were in their twenties again.

Dean zoomed around toward the back while Sam raced right through the front door.

"Defense!" Sam roared racing up the stairs.

Another sound, this one deeper and far more aged tore through the air.

In the hall Sam reached into the linen closet grasping the smoke black .45 John had given him when he was nine, then pressed his back to the wall just outside his son's bedroom door.

Heavy weight thudded to the floor as Sam inched closer.

The bedroom door whipped open, Neil silhouetted by the afternoon light as Sam pressed himself flat to the wall.

"Dad?" Neil moved into the hallway, his 'go bag' in hand. His body shaking and his face stained with tears.

Sam looked behind him, toward the room.

Neil moved forward. "Dad?"

Sam's eyes grabbed his as sounds of a scuffle and a gunshot went off downstairs.

"Dad? What'd I do?" Neil asked watching his father move toward the bedroom.

"Dean!?" Sam called over the rail.

"Clear!" the older hunter retorted.

"Get up here!" Sam called moving into his son's bedroom.

On the floor Tommy Crowhawk lay, his visage a grotesquerie.

His eyes appeared to have exploded in their sockets. The tissue beneath them was specked with tiny purple pinhole freckles. Sam knew petechial hemorrhaging when he saw it.

On the floor was a small water bottle filled with a murky substance.

Tommy's mouth was twisted in a soundless scream, and one of his hands was locked deep inside the flesh of his throat while the other appeared to be involved in pulling his right hand free.

Breath shuddered out of Sam, "Neil?" he asked kneeling beside the aged hunter and checking for vitals he knew weren't there.

"Yeah?" Neil stood at the doorway with Dean behind him, a hand on the boys' shoulder.

"What happened?"

"He came out of the closet after I grabbed my go-bag. He grabbed me, said he had something I needed to drink, that it would make everything go back to the way it was supposed to be." Neil explained.

"Then what?" Sam asked.

"I screamed and you told me 'defense'. So I did what you said, I thought about being safe… and he fell down… just like that." Neil explained.

"What exactly did you think son?" Sam asked not looking at his boy but still knowing Dean held the youth in his arms from behind.

"I knew he was going to hurt me. I knew if he lived he'd just keep coming. So I knew he had to die." Neil explained. "Was I wrong dad?"

Sam couldn't hear anything else. The rush of blood and adrenaline in his ears kept him from hearing more from his boy. His throat burned, and his eyes stung while breath shuddered in his chest.

When he awoke, his pillow was soaked with sweat and his body felt sick in more ways than he ever wanted to know about. He resolved to stave off sleep until this was done. The problem was he didn't know if it was just a dream, or if it was a vision warning him of what could happen if somehow they failed in this mission. Thankfully Dean had been out running a couple of errands and getting them some food for the road, so by the time he'd returned Sam was able to put on his game face and keep another burden from his big brother's shoulders.

He shook his head and sniffed, "Please God. Please help me." He whispered and drew his knees into his chest while popping one of Dean's tapes into the deck. The song that came peeling out of those speakers sent a shiver of hope, and fear, and despair through him.

Slowly he began to sing along, "There's a lady who's sure, all that glitters' is gold and she's buying a stairway to heaven…"

OOooOO

"I met your dad a couple times, how's he doing?" The woman asked while leading Dean through the house to the kitchen.

"He died about four years ago."

"Oh I'm sorry." She touched his arm gently, "So how do you know Laura?"

A faintly sad smile touched his lips as he held up his left hand and showed her his ring. "She's my girl."

The woman's eyes brightened, "She didn't tell me she was married! Congratulations!"

"It's unofficial… more like… just being committed to each other y'know?"

She laughed, "That's pretty much marriage. But you hunt separately?"

"Yeah. It's complicated."

"Life's complicated." She smiled then opened the pantry door.

"Ma'am you don't know the half of it." He agreed, while his eyes roamed over what looked like a library of herbs, roots, flowers, dried insects and God only knew what else. "Holy crap."

"That's a lifetime of accumulating some of these things. Everything from dragon scales to pixie wings. Now… you said you have a sidhe sleep draught and it's not going to be strong enough for what you need?"

Dean shook his head.

"What're you trying to do?"

"We need to kill a very powerful cambion. Unless you know some way we can destroy the demon half and leave the human half intact?" He asked, his eyebrows arched in hope.

Her jaw dropped and her eyes bulged wide, "You're certain it's a real cambion?"

Dean nodded.

She shook her head, "There is no way to separate its two 'sides'. It's very DNA is part demon." She noted his curious expression, "My son is a geneticist, his life's goal is to come up with a, well, I guess you could call it a vaccine against possession. He's been studying demon DNA for almost thirty years."

Dean chuckled, "Wow. I wish him luck."

"So you want to poison this being?" she asked, her expression doubtful.

Dean nodded.

"You're crazier than your father. It's almost impossible to kill a cambion with poison…" she stopped suddenly, "That's why you're going to add it to the sleep draught, knock its guard down so it can't metabolize the toxin."

Dean nodded, his eyes conveying his sadness.

"You don't want to kill it do you?" she asked.

"It's part human. No, I don't," He shook his head. "But it has to be done."

Something in his voice stopped her from asking anything else as she reached into one of the larger jars and pulled out a wormy looking piece of dried root. "The approximate body weight will tell you how long to let this steep. Use one cup of boiling water, no more than that. You'll want to let it steep 3 minutes for every ten pounds."

"That could amount to a lot of steeping."

"You're diluting it in a sleep draught, if you want your target to go peacefully, this is how you're gonna have to do it."

She slid the root into a plastic bag and handed it to Dean who slid it into his inner pocket.

She guided him back through the house and at the front door shook his hand, "Mr. Winchester if you're really doing what must be done, try to remember how many lives you'll be saving."

He huffed, "'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.' Right?"

Sympathy radiated from the woman as she nodded, patted him on the back and ushered him back out into the impossibly beautiful day.

OOooOO

Sedona, Arizona.

"Why the hell are we stopping here?" Sam grunted as Dean found a parking spot in the crowded WalMart lot.

"You think we're going to spoon feed our concoction to this kid? He's a newborn Sammy, baby needs a bottle."

"Crowhawk's obviously got a bottle Dean, he's been taking care of my," he shook his head, "the baby for two days already."

"Yeah well we're gonna do this, we're doing it our way okay?" he explained leaning into the window. Sam's confusion and reluctance was so easy to read it was almost as if Dean could feel it himself. Maybe he could. "Okay?" he pressed nodding as Sam's eyes barely flicked to his and his shoulders slumped.

"Whatever."

About ten minutes later Sam frowned as Dean approached the car with a surprisingly large bag in hand.

Dean tossed the bag in the trunk returning to the drivers' seat with a smaller bag that held a four pack of simple, clear plastic bottles.

"They didn't have singles?"

"It was this or a sixer."

"So what's the rest of the shit in the trunk?"

"They had boxer briefs on sale. I had to go through the men's department to get to the baby stuff so I grabbed us some undies… I'm tired of seeing your ass through those worn out shorts of yours, I swear they're probably the same ones you brought from Stanford."

"A couple of 'em…" Sam admitted, "they're still good."

"Dude, you're practically twice the size you were then." Dean sat back, his hands on the wheel, his eyes forward while he took a deep breath.

Seconds later he turned to face his brother, the man he'd raised, "You don't have to…"

"Don't." the younger man interrupted, "Don't say it," he turned sad sunken eyes on his brother, "I can't leave this to you, or anyone else."

"You didn't have any choice!" Dean barked, "This isn't something you thought out, or agreed to… and it's still tearing you up! It's another shit hand you got dealt and I'm sick and tired of the universe trying to bury you in load after load of pure shit! You don't deserve it, you don't deserve to be Lucifer's chosen vessel. You don't deserve Azazel feeding you demon blood when you were a baby and all the shit that brought."

"You didn't deserve to spend 40 years in hell getting torn up one side and down the other." Sam tossed back. "And you don't deserve to carry the burden of cleaning up another one of my messes."

"That's the point Sam. It's not your mess, you didn't choose this. You didn't choose to father a child like this. Let me take care of this."

Sam looked away, he couldn't keep the water from falling out of his eyes any longer, "Are you that eager…" his voice broke.

Dean grimaced at the question but knew it came from his brother's pain. He rested his hand on Sam's shoulder, near his neck, "No."

Something in his voice got through to Sam, made him turn back and examine his brother closely. Something wasn't right.

OOooOO

Tbc.

Please R&R.

Thanks. Sifi.