"Whirlwind"

"Chapter Four: Soldier's Poem"

Unlocking the motel door, Sam walked in the room and threw his bag onto the floor. Bobby wasn't far behind, looking slightly taken back by the motel room. Sam did have to admit, the décor was very '70 porn movie. Then again, the brothers stayed at weirder places. Bobby discarded his bags on Dean's bed but Sam tried not to let it bother him. Dean was getting better. It was only a gunshot wound and heart surgery after all. Sam laughed bitterly. He was out hunting while his brother was in the hospital. What kind of twisted life did they live?

"You boys know Missouri, don't you?" asked Bobby.

"Dean didn't want her charity."

"You Winchesters always think that receiving even the littlest of help automatically means you're a charity case."

"So, Dean. It's been almost seven hours since I've seen him. I'm going to go take him some food, see how he's doing."

"Sam, it's in the middle of the night. Take a shower, get some rest, and go see him first thing in the morning. You being exhausted isn't going to help Dean or help this hunt."

Meanwhile, across town, Dean sat propped up by pillows in his hospital bed. A dull pain ached his chest, but he pushed it aside and concentrated on the woman sitting on the end of the bed. She surveyed the hand of cards in front of her, glancing up at Dean every now and then. Taking two cards out of her hand, she sat them down on the small tray separating them and drew two more.

"I am a professional when it comes to poker, Darling," Dean said with a smirk as he stared at the full house in his hand - two queens and three tens.

"Go ahead, Dean, be cocky."

A smile graced her features, lighting up her whole face. That's one of the things Dean loved about her, the way she always seemed to have some sort of smile or smirk plastered across her face. He loved the way sarcasm laced her words, the way her voice was soft and smooth. He loved the fact that she'd ditch her job just to play a couple hands of poker with him. The fact that she loved poker in itself and knew how to play filled him with a weird feeling, a feeling like she was the one. Carm- no, Savannah was the one for him. That his whole life of hunting evil and having one-night stands could all come to an end for her.

"I raise you my pudding cup," Dean spoke softly.

"Wow, the pudding is the best food in all the hospital," Savannah chuckled. "I'll accept your pudding offer and raise it with my trusty penlight."

She pulled out a penlight from her breast pocket, waving it seductively in front of Dean. He couldn't help but let out a low chuckle, as she smiled at him again. The conversation, the movements, the way it felt… Dean wasn't sure if he could go back to his life before Savannah.

"Seriously? A penlight? I just added the best food in the hospital up to winner, and you put up your lousy penlight?"

"Not just any penlight but my official nurses' penlight."

"Oh, yeah right, like that makes a different. It's a stupid penlight."

"Fine." Savannah reached into her pocket and pulled out two mints. "I'll add these mints with the penlight."

"Are you trying to tell me something?"

"You have hospital food breath, Dean, of course you need the mints."

He laughed, his chest burning as he did so. Looking at her for several long seconds, Dean laid his hand down onto the tray, a small smirk filling out his face. She tore her eyes away to look at the hand she would have to beat and looked mildly surprised. Looking back up at him, she kept a strong poker face on as she glanced down at her hand one more time.

"Full house. Beat that."

"Four of a kind," Savannah commented with a smile as she revealed her four eights. "Guess you're not as much of a professional as you were claiming to be."

"I let you win," Dean said quickly. "I already kicked your ass twice, I couldn't make it three. I'm too kind."

"Oh, yeah right, Mister Big Shot Professional. My uncle taught me to play when I was five."

"You just got lucky. It was fluke."

"I'm getting lucky a lot lately it seems. Tell you what. You can keep the mints. You need them more than me." Savannah got off the bed and stretched a little. "I gotta go finish my rounds because it's Thursday and I actually have the nightshift. I'm not just hanging around to keep your sorry ass company. You, Mister Cooper, take up too much of my time. Where is that overprotective, younger brother of yours anyways? He needs to take you off my hands."

At the mention of Sammy, Dean's mind wandered to the hunt and what exactly happened earlier that day. In fact, he hadn't heard anything from Sam since he left with Bobby that afternoon. Pushing off the concern, deciding to wait until the morning to start panicking, Dean forced a weak smile on his face.

"Told him to get the hell out and stop hovering over me."

"You're lucky, you know, to have someone that hovers."

"It's annoying."

"He cares, Dean. He obviously cares a lot about you. What more can you want in a little brother?"

"One that doesn't act like a girl all the time with his angst-ridden crap."

"You don't mean that."

Dean shrugged slightly, taking his eyes off Savannah. Sam could get on his nerves, but he couldn't imagine life without his little brother. When he went off to college, leaving just Dean and his dad to do the hunting, Dean didn't know how long he could make it without his little brother. He'd turn to the backseat of the Impala to say something to Sam only to realize he wasn't there. He couldn't even count the amount of times he started to dial Sam's cell phone before hanging up. When Sam was gone, Dean didn't know what to do with himself. His job, his sole purpose in life, was suddenly gone and Dean didn't know how to deal with that.

"Maybe not but I just hate when he hovers. He's always been like that since we were kids. I'd get sick or my dad and he'd play doctor, you know? Surprised he never even thought about going to medical school. He, uh, wanted to be a lawyer."

"Wanted to be? What happened? I thought he was looking into law schools?"

"He was. Had an interview all set up and everything. I, uh, convinced him to leave school," Dean said sadly. "Family business. Anyways, his girlfriend died when we were away. Sam, he uh, he packed up and we started this road trip, you know? He could have… I fucked my life up and I guess lying in the hospital for the past couple days I've started to realize that I fucked his life up to, you know? He's a smart kid. He should be some hot shot lawyer student at Stanford and getting on the waiting list to a pricy law firm."

"Sam wouldn't be here if he didn't want to be," Savannah spoke softly. "When you were in surgery, I saw him sitting all by himself in the waiting room looking about ready to have a panic attack. I went over to him and asked if he needed anything because… I don't know why I went over to him actually. I was just sort of drawn. He looked like a mess, Dean. There was nowhere in the world he wanted to be but here."

"Yeah, maybe."

"You're very guilt-ridden, you know that right?"

"He's my brother," he said slowly. "He's my responsibility. It's my job to protect him and make sure he's happy. I let him down. I guess that's what I do though."

Dean found that he couldn't stop. With Savannah, he felt like she should know everything. He wanted her to know everything about him, wanted to let her in like he never let anyone else in. He shut his mouth tightly before anything else could spill out by mistake, before the words hunting, demons, or ghosts could slip from his lips.

"Dean…"

"Don't. Go do your rounds. I'm really tired."

The next morning, Dean opened his eyes to see his little brother sitting next to the bed with his laptop resting on his legs. On the small end table next to the bed, was a bag of food and two cups of coffee. Dean moved to sit up but his chest protested. He let out a small groan which snapped Sam out of his research. He immediately reached behind the bed and tapped the nurse's call button several times.

"Just sit back, Dude," he told him as he tried to push his older brother gently back onto the bed.

A nurse that Dean hadn't seen before ran into the room, asking what was wrong. Sam explained about the pain and watched her walk out of the room. Dean heaved on the bed as he looked up at his brother, quickly pushing the pain in the back of his mind to do a quick glance over of his little brother. He was relieved when he didn't see any injuries. Soon enough the nurse was back with an intern who administered pain medication into the IV. Within a good minute, Dean relaxed, feeling only a dull ache in his chest.

"You've been doing well up until now, correct, Mister Cooper?" asked the intern.

"Pretty good. I was fine, just a little tinge of pain."

"Dean, don't lie," Sam commented which earned him a dirty look.

"I'm fine," Dean emphasized.

After several minutes of questioning, after a fair amount of groaning and insisting he's fine, the intern and nurse finally left. Dean snapped his head to his little brother who just stared at his brother with a smug look on his face.

"Bitch."

"If you're not going to take care of yourself, then I will," Sam paused before adding, "Jerk."

"Dude, I'm freakin' dandy."

"You were shot, Dean! You just had surgery! Don't tell me you're dandy or fine or good or whatever! You're not!"

"What'd you and Bobby find out? Get that little bitch who shot me?"

With a sigh, Sam explained everything Bobby told him about the grave. How there was sulfur, claw marks, and how the only way he could have come back was through a Crossroads Demon. He explained how they went to the warehouse and found no supernatural activity or any trail of where Max went.

"You get my car?"

"Yes, I got your car," Sam said testily. "You think I'd just leave the Impala there with a weapon cache that could supply a small army?"

"Wouldn't be the first stupid thing you've done," replied Dean with a smirk. "Need I remind you of the hotel incident?"

"Oh, you mean that stupid prank you pulled on me back when we were kids?"

"Dude, it's not my fault that you're scared of horror movies."

"Yeah, well, Dean, you know, maybe if you would have just let it go for once, then you wouldn't have wound up in the hospital."

"The prank I pulled did not permit you to hit me in the head with a baseball bat!"

"Dean! You paid people in the hotel - where we were on a job and was very much haunted - to make talk about how there were people there who had the shining and that there was a writer there who was acting suspicious! You even paid a kid to ride a big wheel in the hallway!"

"Sammy, you were sixteen. I would have hoped you didn't believe that people actually got the shining! You were just too easy!"

"You shouldn't have come at me with an ax!"

Dean paused, contemplating that last statement in his head. He laughed at the memory of chasing Sam outside of the hotel at one in the morning. Shrugging it off, he waved his hand to dismiss it.

"Dude, like I was really going to hurt you."

"I thought you went crazy! I mean, it was like that one time you made me think the Impala could talk and fiddled around with the wires to make me believe it came to life and was about to go on a homicidal rampage! Or the time you made me think Pennywise was real! Or that time I was taking a shower and you blared the Psycho music in the motel room and came into the bathroom with a knife!"

"Come on, you were so easy to scare that it wasn't even funny. I made you tough though." Dean smirked at his brother. "I really wish I could've found a way to make you believe Chucky was real."

"Don't even talk about him! I had to throw away the few stuffed animals I had because of that movie! I mean that last hotel gig we had, with the room full of dolls! I can't believe you made me go in there, stating that I loved dolls!"

"I was really hoping to find a redheaded male doll to show you… maybe wave it in your face for a bit, watch you scream like a girl."

Sam sighed, rubbing the palms of his hands roughly into his eyes. His hands fell in his lap as he looked over to the breakfast he'd brought his brother, the breakfast that was most likely cold. He threw the bag at Dean, a sausage croissant and some hash browns. Dean looked in the bag with a smile playing on his lips.

"It's probably cold, not that it really matters to you. I mean, you eat pizza that stayed out all night on the counter that probably was riddled in bacteria."

"That's the best kind of pizza, Sammy," Dean said before shoving half the croissant into his mouth.

Shaking his head, Sam grabbed his discarded laptop to finish what he started. Ash had e-mailed him everything he could find out on Max Miller even down to the grave desecration report filed nearly a year before. In the report, it stated that the dirt was disturbed on the grave, but nobody dug to find out if the casket or body were messed with.

"So where are you and Bobby going to start looking?" asked Dean.

"Bobby's looking into that as we speak. We're going out tonight."

"You could go now, if you want."

"Nah, I wanted to spend some time with you. It'll give you something to do besides stare at the wall."

"You mean, you want to stay here because if the FBI comes, you can carry my ass out of here?"

Sam looked up at his brother. That wasn't exactly his thought process but close to it. If the FBI did come, they needed an escape route. Sam hadn't planned out what they were going to do if that came to happen, but he felt better knowing someone was with Dean if worse came to worse.

"You know… Savannah?" Dean changed the subject.

"What about her?"

"She's just like she was in my dream," he replied with a weak smile. "She's exactly the same except for the name. I can't figure it out."

"What if the Djinn just doesn't induce you into a dream-like state? What if what you see is actually what could have been?"

"Why wouldn't the name be the same then?"

"Maybe it's distorted. Like in case you do fight the Djinn's reality, you won't be able to have the aspects that were different in real life?"

"That doesn't make sense."

"I don't know, Dean, I'm not an expert on Djinns."

Dean just nodded, popping in a cold hash brown into his mouth. Sam's brow furrowed as he watched his brother. He'd seen that look before, the longing in his brother's features. Sam knew it must have been hard for Dean to fight it, the perfect world where their mom was alive and they were both happy with the women of their dreams. How he must long to go back, long to hug and talk to their mom one last time.

"So you've talked to Savannah more?"

"She played poker with me last night," he spoke fondly. "I beat her the first two times and then she royally handed me my ass before she left to do rounds."

"You love her, don't you?"

"Dude, no. Come on, I barely know the chick."

Even though he knew the words should be true, he felt like he'd just betrayed Savannah in some way. He didn't know the Carmen in the dream; he didn't know Savannah in reality. When he was with her, he felt like he'd known her his whole life. She made him forget the bad, think how trivial his life had been, how pathetic he was.

"Whatever you say, Dean."

"Hey, when you find Max, make sure you shot him for me."

"There's something about this whole hunt that doesn't feel right. I mean… Max? I don't understand how he's back."

"You said it was a Crossroad Demon."

"Yeah, that's what Bobby thinks because a demon can't bring the dead back unless a deal is made, but you knew him as well as I did. The kid didn't have any friends. He was a loner."

"So? Even the most socially retarded have friends."

"Dean… what if this isn't about a Crossroad Demon? What if he's back because he's a psychic?"

"What? So psychics can't die now? Dude, lucky you, you're immortal."

"I don't know."

"Well, have Ash look up other dead psychics," Dean suggested. "What's his face? Andy's psycho brother. See if he's back before you jump the gun on this."

"The demon said he had plans for me. What if this is the plan? We die and we become a part of his army or something?"

"Sammy, calm down. Don't go making accusations like that, okay? We don't know what the hell is going on here."

"What if this is why Dad told you to kill me? I mean, maybe… maybe so I wouldn't turn evil?"

"Dude, no. Come on. If when psychics die they become evil, why would Dad tell me to kill you for that? So you could be a demon recruit? That doesn't make sense."

"None of this makes sense!" Sam shouted back.

He stood up, tucking his laptop under his arm before reaching for his coffee. He looked at Dean, apologizing, stating that he just needed some time to think. The elder Winchester nodded, waving meekly at his brother before he stormed out.

Sam threw the laptop into the back of the Impala before getting into the driver's seat. He leaned back into the familiar seat, arching his back slightly. Shoving the key into the ignition, he turned it and heard the engine rumble. He pulled out of the hospital parking garage and drove, not knowing exactly where he was going.

He didn't know how long he'd driven. He had to pull over once to refill before he was off again, driving aimlessly around Lawrence. It seemed as though he knew the town as well as his own backhand from driving all day. When the sun set, Sam decided to head back to the motel room and wait for Bobby so they could make their next move.

He was only a mile away when he saw a man walking in the middle of the road. Sam slammed on the breaks. It was then that he realized that it was Max walking down the road, staring at Sam through the glass. Reaching in the glove department for the nearest gun, he stepped out of the car and pointed the gun at the kid.

"Stop!" he shouted. "I don't want to shoot you, Max!"

The gun went flying out of Sam's hands at this point. Sam tried to get back in the car at that moment, grabbing the handle of the door to open it. The handle slipped from his grasp as the door slammed shut, the door locking. Before he could even think about getting in another door, all the doors locked at once. The keys were still in the ignition.

"Why are you doing this, Max? What happened to you?"

"This is our destiny, Sam," he replied. "Don't you see that?"

"What? You mean killing innocent people is our destiny?"

"No, killing hunters is our destiny. The bane of our existence. They're the real evil, Sam, not the demons. They want peace, and they can't get that until the hunters are extinct."

"Max, whatever they've been telling you… it's a lie. I'm a hunter, Max, and we're not the ones that are evil. The ones that kill people for no good reason." Sam placed his hands up in the air in surrender. "We help people. We save people."

"He says there's hope for you yet… he favors you, you know? You're part of one of his precious generations."

"Generations?"

"Don't fight it, Sam. Once he shows you everything, shows you the light, you'll never want to go back. You'll see your sole purpose is to serve him."

"Max, what are you talking about?"

"I'm sorry, Sam. This is the only way. This is his will."

Before Sam would say anything else, before he could do anything, someone hit him from behind, causing him to fall forward on the ground, his hands skinning on the dirt and rock road. Pain flooded his head as he tried to look up, tried to fight. Another blow hit him and everything went black.

Author's Notes - I'm glad that more of you showed interest in the last chapter. I hope that only continues to grow. Here's another chapter, hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget to review and tell me what you think. The fate of the story rests in your hands.