What has happened so far:

With only a couple of months to spare until Dean's deal with the crossroad's demon comes due, Sam and Dean travel to Nevada, towards the outskirts of the Mojave Desert. Dean goes in search of a fun hunt, a Chupacabra, of all things. Sam's motives run deeper.

Somewhere in the area, lives an Indian Chief of the Cahuilla tribe, renown for their knowledge in deals with supernatural beings and deities.

Separated from each other by a sand storm, Dean finds himself attacked by a creature that seems, at first, too cruel and vicious to be anything but a nightmare.

Driven to drunkenness after a second and just as brutal attack that proves to him that the creature is very much real, Dean demands that they change motels.

The following morning, Dean finds new bruising on his wrists and plans on fighting the monster that keeps on attacking him. After some research, Dean dismisses the fact that it might be a Succubus because of the bat-like aspect of the monster. Instead, as he adds night terrors to his search, Dean figures he's facing a Hag, a form of Goblin that attacks people in their sleep by sitting in their chests.

When Sam leaves to meet with Ahtuapu, the Indian Chief, Dean starts turning the room into a trap for Goblins.

In the Cahuillas' camp, Sam stumbles across a mourning group and the Chief confesses that he's known Sam was a hunter all along His tribe needs one, and if Sam manages to figure out what is making the young men of his tribe commit suicide, Ahtuapu will help him with Dean's deal.

Ahtuapu tells Sam about the attacks, how no one ever hears anything, how the victims refuse to tell what has happened to them until the day they kill themselves. Researching older cases, Sam finds out that this isn't the first time it has happen, discovering clusters of young men suicides since 1997 in California.

Dean visits the coroner that did the autopsy on the latest man who killed himself and is told that all victims had the same hormone in their blood work. He also sees the odd growth of cells that the doctor has pulled out of the latest body.

The nature of the attacks the victim had suffered and the similarity between his bruises and Dean's makes him think that the same thing that attacked him, attack the Native American boys at the camp.

This is what happens next...


THE DARKEST SIDE OF BLACK

CHAPTER /(O|O)\\SIX

After losing his stomach lining at the corner of the coroner's office and Main Street, Dean seemed to lose track of the events that followed. One minute he was staring at the mess he'd made on top of the sports page of some discarded newspaper abandoned on the floor and the next he was staring at his own reflection on a jewelry shop window.

He must have been there for a while. Inside, a stuck up man, thin as spaghetti and with hair so tidy and straight that it looked more like a wig, was sending him warning looks. Either come in and spend money or haunt another shop.

Dean pushed away, the dimming sunlight telling him that at least an hour had gone by. What had happened in between? And why the hell couldn't he remember? He wasn't all that far from the coroner's office. Had he been at that window, staring at himself all that time?

Sam would be waiting for him out at County office, so that the two of them could drive back to the Cahuillas' camp and get ready to kill that thing tonight. The thing that had been attacking those young men in exactly the same way that it had attacked Dean.

The hunter palmed his stomach. It rumbled with hunger, but other than that, he felt normal. And yet... he had seen the mass in the doc's fridge, the glob he had taken out of the young man's stomach. What if Dean had something like that too? What if there was something nasty growing inside him?

Nausea threatened to do a repeat show and Dean started moving, ignoring the discomfort, the pain and the feeling of a giant black chasm chasing his every step. He could see the coroner's office two buildings away. He'd left his car parked on the side street.

In the opposite direction, a couple of buildings ahead, Dean could see the library's entrance.

There was something about what Sam had told him about the Cahuilla victims and a detail that the coroner had mention that had Dean thinking.

Throwing a quick glance at his watch and figuring that when Sam was tired of waiting for him he would call, Dean headed to the library instead. He needed to be sure before he could even form a theory.

The Djinn were the main piece in the puzzle that he was starting to put together. A while back, Dean had fallen into the clutches of one of those blue tattooed freaks. The thing had trapped him in a world of illusions, feeding off Dean's blood while pumping him with some kind of supernatural acid that made him believe that Mary and Jessica were still alive and that a chick from some beer commercials was his dream woman.

Later, after Sam had found him and they had killed the Djinn, while they were checking up at the hospital on the young woman who had been rescued alongside Dean, her doctors had used the exact same words as the coroner has just used: 'an uncommon hormone'.

While the medical team at the hospital where they'd checked in the other Djinn's victim hadn't been able to give a name to the compound, the man in charge of the investigation had said that it acted as a sort of neurotoxin, altering the brains perception of reality. It also caused an important brain chemistry imbalance that, the doctor had ventured, could lead to severe depression.

At the time, Dean hadn't been under the influence of the Djinn long enough to suffer the after effects of it's hormone, but he had still felt like crap in the weeks following his captivity. However, in between the fact that he was still mourning John's death and that he'd just had his mother taken away from his life a second time, Dean hardly noticed the added sense of depression.

And there was the message that one of the kids had left behind 'I will never tell'. Sam had said that the Chief had assumed it to be a sign of some kind of threat for silence. Dean was beginning to wonder if they'd all gotten it wrong and actually meant the exact opposite.

The monster's parting words had been about sharing what had happened to him, about telling Sam what had been done to him.

'Tell him, or I'll be back'. The words were engraved in Dean's memory, branded in fire and pain. And Dean had reacted exactly like the kid who'd left the message. He too would never tell.

Dean couldn't be sure before he checked a couple of things at the library, but he was almost certain he now knew what they were dealing with. And if that were the case, he'd need to make a stop at the local butcher's shop.

/(O|O)\\

Unlike what Sam believed, not all useable knowledge came from books.

It had been little more than a drunken side talk at the Road House, while Dean was waiting for Ash to geek him out some information. The man had had more than a few and was loudly telling his drinking buddies -and anyone else who wanted to hear- how he had single-handedly saved a whole town in Africa from a monster that had been fucking their young men to death.

Dean couldn't remember how the hunter described the monster, or even how he managed to kill it, but the man had announced more than once that, had one of the victims not spilled the whole beans about what had happened and what had been done to him, the hunter's ass would've been history because he would have never guessed that he'd been facing a mutate Djinn.

That had been the word he had used. Mutated.

Unlike his earlier attempts in the motel room, when Dean was faced with the computer's empty space where the search word should be, Dean knew now exactly what to type.

The answer showed up so easily that Dean felt like crying as he scanned the news reports on the first attacks in a Tanzanian island, Pemba. The clues had all been there, he'd just been too distracted to see them. This could've all ended so much sooner...

Reading the detailed reports of the men it had initially attacked was painful. The ones who had talked had been meticulous in their account, describing how a giant bat creature would come scratching on the roofs of their homes, bringing with it a pungent smell; of how it would overcome them and assaulted them for hours in a row; of how it would urge them to tell what had happened under the threat of coming back and doing worse. They had even given it a name. Popobawa.

The name seemed too ridiculous for the amount of grief and pain that that thing caused.

Digging deeper, Dean confirmed what he had initially suspected: that, while some believed it to be a shapeshifter, the majority stood behind the notion that the first of this things was actually a Djinn. Summoned and trapped by a Sheikh seeking revenge on his enemies, centuries ago. When the Djinn eventually regained his freedom, it was already too late and the damage was done. It had stopped being a creature out of the stories in Scheherazade's 'A thousand and one nights' to become this thing of nightmares, the Popobawa.

The important thing for Dean, however, was the beast's origins. If it had started as a Djinn... Dean could kill it as a Djinn.

/(O|O)\\

If a green elephant had happened to walk down the street as Dean made his way from the library back to his car, Dean wouldn't have noticed.

His mind was racing a mile an hour, going over what he had learned, trying to figure out a way of killing that thing without actually telling Sam what it was or how Dean had reached his conclusions.

He'd often come up with his best plans while driving. It something that Dean felt he'd been doing for almost as long as he could walk, something that came as second nature, on occasion with little thought involved. Still, this time his mind was nothing but a blank page where a single thought was typed: kill it.

He wasn't paying attention to much else.

So, when Dean started the reverse maneuver to get the Impala back on the main road, the glance he threw towards the back of the car was more out of habit than necessity. There were no other cars in that alley; there was no way there could be anything back there. But if there were, they wouldn't have registered in his mind.

What did register was something more primal, some deeply seeded instinct of protection towards those who can't protect themselves.

The four foot high blond haired head that he caught at the corner of his eye, disappearing behind the rear end of the Impala, froze Dean's blood inside his veins. "Shit!" he yelped, hitting the brakes with both feet.

Dean's heart was hammering against his chest as he exited the car and went to the back. In his mind he was already imagining the damage that a car that size would do to a kid that small. Dean looked around. Kid that young, there should be parents around, right?

But the alley was as empty as it was silent. The kid wasn't even whimpering and Dean was sure that he'd hit him.

Silence was not good. Silence was blood and broken bones; silence was a body no longer breathing.

The instant relief of looking down and seeing nothing but the black, shiny, rear end bumper of the Impala was quickly overcome by confusion. He was sure he'd seen the kid; he could even remember that he had big, light colored eyes and pale skin.

Dean looked around the alley, fearing that the impact might've sent the kid flying backwards. Nothing.

He knelt down, looking under the Impala. Nothing.

There was no sign of a small kid being there. There was no sign that he'd ever been. And yet Dean had seen him very clearly, bobbling blond hair and a yellow shirt. He had a yellow shirt and a pair of red jeans.

Dean looked at his watch again. He was already running late. And despite the fact that he felt like he was losing his mind, Dean was not in the mood to have Sam all pissy at him because he was late.

/(O|O)\\

Sam was already pacing the street outside the county offices when Dean made a turn on to the right street.

"Where the hell have you been?" Sam exploded as soon as Dean rolled to a stop at the curb next to him. "And pick up your damn phone when I call, I was worried sick!"

Dean palmed his pockets. He had no idea where his phone was. He couldn't even remember if he'd grabbed it that afternoon when they'd checked out of the motel. "Didn't hear it, I guess," Dean offered lamely, making a mental note to replace it soon.

It was just a cell phone, Dean knew that, but it was one more thing that he'd let escape his control lately. Lost time, lost phone, lost control over his own body. None of it sat well with the older Winchester.

"Got what you were looking for?" Dean asked as soon as Sam was settled in the passenger seat of the Impala.

Sam waved a bundle of printed papers in his hand, as if the action would shake lose the information he'd been gathering the whole afternoon. "I know what we're hunting for," he answered, a victorious smile replacing the frown of worry he'd been wearing before. "And I know how to kill it."

"You do?" Dean asked, flicking on the turn signal and looking outside for incoming traffic. He was glad there was an old Volvo making its way in their lane to keep Dean looking in that direction; it was the only way he could hide from Sam's view the cold sweat that had broken out all over his face at Sam's announcement.

Was it possible that County records had some of the previous victims' statements with them? Could they contain any details that pointed Sam in the Popobawa's direction? Did Sam suspect anything? Had he found out what had happened to Dean?

"Care to share with the rest of the class?"

"A Succubus," Sam announced, his attention back on his papers and failing to see the relieved look on his brother's face. "And in between the exorcisms in dad's journal, the one that you used the before and a couple extra ones I found, we can put an end to this creep tonight."

/(O|O)\\

"If you're going to hunt with someone else, make sure that they are as prepared for everything as you are. Going with a partner that's not on the same page as you will get you both killed."

John's usual speech might as well have been whispered into Dean's ear, so close and so clearly he could hear it. He wasn't paying attention to his father's words now.

Dean knew he should tell Sam that the salt he was busy laying all around every hut and tent wouldn't do any good; he should warn Sam that there was no point in memorizing three different exorcisms because none of them would do a thing for what was coming to them that night; he should definitely make sure that Sam was armed with something more than a flask of holy water that would do nothing to the Popobawa other than get it wet.

Dean handed his brother the gun loaded with silver rounds, telling him it was salt. It felt bad to deceive Sam like that, but the mere thought of telling his brother what this thing was and how exactly Dean had come to have the extra intel that had allowed him to reach that conclusion... it was a conversation that Dean had actually tried to start on their drive to the Cahuillas' camp. He had ended up having to park the car on the side of the road and run out, before he puked all over the upholstery.

He wasn't about to try that again.

With some help from the Chief, they had managed to talk with all of the young men in the camp that had been attacked. Dean tried to act casual and professional, but he couldn't help but look into those kids' eyes and wonder if he looked as broken as they did; to look into their flat midriffs and wonder if that blob of killing flesh was growing inside of them as well.

Dean hoped that killing the Popobawa would be enough to make it go away, to erase whatever sickness that thing had infected them with. Had infected him with.

They would have to check that after, somehow.

Dean couldn't really think that far ahead yet. First, they needed to find out where the thing would strike next and kill it before it could hurt anyone else.

Finding where it would be was becoming easier with each interview, as Sam systematically managed to make kid after kid open up and confess that the nature of the monster's attack had been sexual. Dean couldn't help but be impressed at the way Sam could make those kids feel safe enough to tell a perfect stranger how that thing had hurt them.

On one hand, it was good. As soon as the young men told someone what had happened to them, they were safe from a second attack. Like the Bloody Mary who killed anyone with a bloody secret in their past, this bat beast also had a thing for only repeating its attacks on those too afraid or embarrassed to tell what had happened to them.

On the other hand... with the elimination of each of the Popobawa's potential next victim, it became clearer and clearer that Dean was the only one left. The only one who had yet to break his silence. There was no way that thing wouldn't be coming for him next.

But in the same way as he couldn't just tell Sam to stop memorizing every exorcism that he could because none would do him any good, Dean couldn't tell him either that it was pointless to round up all the young men and keep them in the same place so they'd be safe.

"Hey, you sure you're okay to do this?" Sam's voice cut through Dean's wandering thoughts.

Dean nodded, his gaze meeting Sam's for a fleeting moment before refocusing on the sleeping forms that they were guarding.

Sam and the Chief had figured that this was the safest course of action given that they couldn't guess who the monster would be attacking next, the only way to keep every man on the tribe safe under the same roof and be sure to catch the monster at work. Dean had kept his silence, nodding on occasion to ensure them that he agreed with their plan.

It was pointless as far as their safety was concerned, but it would keep them out of Dean's way.

The women had been instructed to sleep in another tent, but every one knew none of them would be closing their eyes that night. Every single one of their loved ones was inside that tepee with Sam and Dean and it had taken a lot of persuasion on Ahtuapu's part to convince them to stay away.

Dean had tried to send Sam away too, offering some lame excuse that the women would be unprotected, but that argument had no chance of ever working. Even if Sam had the monster wrong, he had the creature' modus operandi right. This thing would only come after men.

"I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like," Sam spoke again, the soft tones barely audible over the sound of twenty men trying to keep quiet and pretending to sleep.

"Imagine what?" Dean asked distractedly.

"You know," Sam said with pained breath, "being raped."

Dean's heart jumped inside his chest, beating wildly in a staccato pace that begged Sam to shut up.

"I mean, it's gotta be hard enough when it's another human being doing it, to have control over your own body be taken away from you like that, to not be able to stop something that horrifying from happening..." Sam shook his head, clearly empathizing. "Add to that the fact that it's a supernatural being doing it, one that few have even heard of and therefore no one can ever possibly understand what you've been through?" Eyes heavy with compassion for the men inside that tent, Sam went on, "It must be nearly impossible to deal with."

Dean swallowed, amazed at the amount of bile that had gathered inside his mouth in between one failed breath and the next. The pity in Sam's voice... just imagining that sympathetic tone and those understanding eyes looking at him, seeing him as a victim... Dean would die before he'd allow that to happen.

"Yeah," Dean whispered not because of the need for stealth but because he couldn't find the strength to power his voice, the sound too hoarse from emotion, "must be a real shitty situation."

Sam turned to face his brother, his expression curious and strange, as if he could guess what was going on inside Dean's head. Before he could put his questions into words, they could both feel the hairs at the back of their necks standing at attention.

Two seconds later they could hear it. The sound of talons, scrapping against the canvas covering of the teepee.

"This is it," Sam called out, the grip on the flask of holy water in his hand growing tighter.

Cold sweat broke out on Dean's skin. Sam was right, this was it. Dean's last chance to come clean and tell Sam what they were really hunting, to make sure that his brother wouldn't be fighting an enemy of which he knew nothing about. Or to get him away from Dean. Safe.

"Head outside and flank it," Dean whispered, his hands moving fast in the darkness. "I'll stay here. We'll catch it in between."

It wasn't the plan they had agreed to, but it was one that they'd used often enough, one that Dean was sure Sam wouldn't raise any objections to.

Sam nodded, moving quiet as a shadow. "Be careful," he whispered before slipping outside.

Dean watched his brother go and quickly grabbed the jar of lamb's blood from his pocket and the knife he had hidden in the lining of his right boot. His hand shook on the handle of the knife, blood dripping quietly from the sharp tip. He could do this, Dean reminded himself. He had been doing this his whole life.

The scratching coming from above had ceased as soon as Sam had stepped outside. Dean prayed that he hadn't gotten his facts wrong and that the Popobawa wouldn't go after Sam instead of coming for him.

Dean's whole plan counted on the thing coming after him and him alone. He counted to ten and slipped outside, making his way to one of the empty tents.

There was absolutely no light inside the canvas structure but Dean couldn't risk attracting anyone's attention by turning his flashlight on. Either way, he didn't need to see the monster. Dean knew it was there already, waiting for him. He could feel it.

"I'm here, you son of a bitch," Dean called out with more confidence than he felt. "Why don't you come and say hello?"

The puff of air against the back of Dean's neck was impossible to mistake for anything else.

*You did not tell.*

The heated stench of the Popobawa sent a chill down Dean's spine, but he didn't hesitate, spinning around. It was the fastest he'd moved in his entire life and still it wasn't fast enough.

The room was too dark to see little more than different shades of shadows, but Dean could feel the instant when the Popobawa grabbed his right hand, the one holding the blade dipped in lamb's blood, and snapped Dean's wrist back, effectively breaking bone and any hope of holding onto the knife. The sound of the knife hitting the carpet-cushioned ground should've been as loud as thunder for all that it meant.

Dean sucked in a pained breath, telling himself that the tears leaking from his eyes were due to his broken wrist and not the fact that he was, once again, at the mercy of that monster.

*You did not tell him.*

The voice sounded inside Dean's head like a crushing wave. Dean fought to keep his train of thought and plans, reaching with his left hand behind his back to get to the gun he'd loaded with silver rounds. The silver might've not kill a mutant Djinn, but Dean was sure it would at least slow it down.

The Popobawa, however, gave Dean no chance to even touch the hot metal of the weapon pressed against the small of his back. Instead, with a powerful shove that sent Dean ten feet across the room, the bat-beast effectively stopped Dean from doing anything else but whimper in pain as he landed on his broken bones. "Sonofabitch."

Dean lay there, panting on the rug-covered floor. He knew what would happen next and the panic of being helpless to stop it once again was making his heart thunder inside his chest, throbbing in tandem with his wrist.

The thing moved without a sound, one second ten feet away, the next materializing on top of Dean's back, it's weight pushing him against the unforgiving floor, making it impossible to breath.

Dean didn't want to breath. The same smell that had made him sick to his stomach all the other times was now worse than even. He could feel it in his mouth even without breathing.

All of the previous experiences morphed into the same one. He was in the desert and he was in the motel bed; he was dressed and naked; he was awake and asleep. His body hummed with terrorized anxiety, fearing the unknown, knowing exactly what it would feel like to have his insides crushed and stretched in the same painful motion.

"Hey!"

At first, Dean was sure that he had imagined it. But Sam's voice had never been a part of the previous assaults. Nor did the gunshot that follow.

The weight of the Popobawa was suddenly gone and Dean took a large gulp of air, the fresh oxygen cleaning his mind somewhat. Sam was standing by the entrance to the tent, gun double-palmed, still pointed at the creature. Eyes full of confusion, he looked between Dean and the giant bat that he'd just shot.

The pause that followed was less than a second, but it felt eternal to both brothers. Dean ensuring himself that Sam was actually there; Sam making the switch inside his head from normal type of Succubus to... some form he had never seen before.

Sam recovered first.

Changing the gun for his flask of holy water, Sam took a step nearer to the beast, Latin already rolling off his lips like it was his first language.

Rather than wait for the moment when Sam would realize that the Latin was useless for banishing a monster that was definitely not a demon or had any sort of demonic affiliations, Dean moved into action.

Despite his broken wrist, Dean rolled away from the spot when the Popobawa had pressed him down, and in the same fluid movement, grabbed the knife that had been knocked away from his grip and rose, prepared to strike.

The Popobawa chose that exact moment to charge as well. Quickly shaking off the surprise of having been shot, the monster roared angrily as it leaped in Sam's direction.

Everything after that seemed to have been filtered through a slow motion veil. Sam's surprise at the fact that the exorcism wasn't working on the 'Succubus' either; the feral intensity of the Popobawa's charge, claws drawing out and catching the reflection of the flashlight in Sam's hand like long, sharp knifes; Dean's desperate race to reach the mutant Djinn before it reached Sam.

When the blood covered knife sunk to the hilt in the bat's fur, Dean felt like a pressure valve had been unscrewed inside his chest. Like molten lava that had been confined inside a plastic jar for too long had finally melt away through its walls and was free.

Anger and frustration boiled and he found he couldn't stop at just that first stab to the heart. The vengeful sensation of warm blood coating his fingers didn't even registered in Dean's awareness, lost as it was in the acrid after-taste of warm monster-semen that still lingered inside Dean's mouth.

Dean had to bite his own lip to stop himself from laughing when the dying monster gave out a pathetic little whimper, more of a rush of air from his pierced lungs than a constructed sound. It was the sweetest thing that Dean had ever heard and that realization scared him more than the prospect of failing at killing that thing.

"I think its dead enough, Dean," Sam's voice cut through the sound of metal pounding flesh. Throwing Dean an odd look as the older Winchester paused with his arm raised midair, blade dripping blood, Sam took a closer gander at the bleeding monster on the floor.

Dean nodded and swallowed back the bile that had gathered inside his mouth. The pain filtered through the adrenaline rush and he clutched his throbbing, broken wrist to his chest. There was something sliding down the side of his face and Dean swipe it away with such disgust that he almost cut himself with the knife still in his left hand.

"You okay?" Sam asked, his voice sounded tentative. Uncertain. Weary.

Surely Sam had seen the Popobawa on top of him. Had seen Dean kill it with a knife, something that would never have worked on a sex demon, or any kind of demon. Sam was a smart guy; Dean knew it was just a matter of time before his brother put everything together.

"Fucker broke my wrist, but yeah… I'm fine," Dean finally muttered. Out of habit, he moved to clean the dirty knife on his jeans but stopped before the blade actually touched him. Dean didn't want any more of that thing on him,, blood or otherwise. "That has got to be the ugliest Succubus that I've ever seen," he added, avoid looking at Sam's eyes to find out how far his bullshit excuse was flying.

"I don't think this thing is a Succubus," Sam stated. He crouched down, pocking at the bat-monster with the tip of his gun. "Have you ever even seen anything like this before?"

It felt like a trick question. One that Dean was in too much pain and exhaustion to examine closely.

Dean forced himself to look at the thing that had changed his life forever, the monster that had altered the way Dean saw himself. It no longer looked menacing or imposing; it didn't even looked otherworldly now.

The giant mass of black fur and leathery wings looked more like a pile of burned rubber and dark foam, a parody of a stuffed animal, deflated and lifeless. "No," Dean lied with as much conviction as he could put into his words. "Ugliest sonofabitch I've ever seen, that's for sure."

Sam gave him a look, a fleeting glance that could mean a thousand things, before shrugging and getting back to his feet. "What do we do with it?"

Dean touched his uninjured hand to his belly, imagining that he could grab the disease the Popobawa had infected him with and just yank it out. "We salt and burn it," he answered. They needed to make sure that that thing was completely gone, erase all traces that it'd ever existed. And maybe, just maybe, they'd get lucky and the evilness that it had caused in life would ebb away with the smoke of its burned body.

/(O|O)\\

Sam had done most of the work, dragging the monster outside and finding a place close enough, outside of the camp's limits, to burn the thing.

Dean was almost grateful for the broken wrist that gave him the perfect excuse to avoid touching that thing ever again.

After the initial shock of seeing the monstrous thing that had been attacking the young men of the tribe and had caused so many unnecessary deaths, Ahtuapu had managed to gather a couple of volunteers to help Sam with the fire and disposal of the beast.

Morning Dew, Straw String's mother, had taken one look at Dean's swollen wrist and had declared that she would take care of him.

Dean had never been so happy to be whisked away from his brother's inquisitive eyes.

"You don't have to do this," Dean said the minute he was alone with the woman in her family's tent. "As soon as we're done here, I can stop by a free clinic and they'll take care of it."

The woman just shook her head, raven dark hair flowing gracefully around her shoulders. "I'm happy to help," she said in a quiet, sad voice. "My son would want me to."

"Your son," Dean started, taking a sharp breath when the woman tightened the wrap around his wrist. "He was one of the attacked?"

The sadness in her eyes at Dean's words was so deep that he didn't need to hear her next words to know what she was going to say.

"My son was one of the dead," she confirmed, her gestures gentle even though her voice shook.

Dean looked down, unable to hold her gaze. Her son had suffered exactly the same thing as Dean; had gone through the exact same pain and humiliation that Dean had. Had been used and left powerless under the same malevolent being as Dean had. And while Dean could now take some measure of comfort in knowing that the Popobawa was dead, he knew that this woman's son would never have that chance.

Remembering the young man he'd seen in the morgue, the way in which he had taken his own life... how angry and powerless the boy must have felt. Dean couldn't possibly imagine what it must've been like for this mother to have found her son like that.

"The—" he started, finding that his voice was barely strong enough to be heard. Dean cleared his throat and tried again. "The medical report said that... that there was something in your son's blood," he began explaining. The information about the beast's brain altering hormone and it's consequences wouldn't bring Morning Dew her son back, but Dean hoped that it would at least help her understand her son's actions. "The thing that—that attacked your son... it left something in his blood, something that made him severely depressed. On top of what—of what had been done to him... your son must've felt that he had no other choice but to take his own life."

The woman nodded, her face resolute and strong even though tears ran unchecked down her cheeks. "I know my son was a strong young man. There was never a doubt in my mind," she said with a sad but prideful smile.

Dean opened his mouth, suddenly embarrassed that his words might've sound like an excuse for the young man's actions. Before he could say anything, however, the Native American woman placed a reassuring hand on his arm, her touch warm and compassionate.

"I am grateful you have killed the evil that forced him into this..." she whispered, her hand moving from his arm to rest against Dean's face, cupping his cheek in a tender gesture that mothers seem to have perfected. Dean missed that sort of touch terribly and even though he didn't know this woman from anywhere, he found himself leaning into it, allowing her benevolent gesture to warm him in way he hadn't been able to since that day in the desert.

"You are like my son," Morning Dew said, her voice nothing but a wisp of air against Dean's skin. "Don't allow yourself to end like he did."

Dean tensed, jerking away from her touch. "What are you talking about?"

Her liquid brown eyes held his for a moment, long enough for Dean to feel naked under her gaze.

"String Straw had the same look in his eyes then as you do now," she simply said, the conviction in her voice enough to send Dean's stomach into somersaults.

"What look?"

"Of waking up one day and realizing that his whole existence was nothing but an illusion."

/(O|O)\\

"I cannot thank you enough for what you have done," Ahtuapu started, standing beside Sam as the two watched the beast burn. From the outside, it almost looked like a harmless bonfire celebration. "I can sleep at rest this night and the ones that will follow, knowing that my people is safe. Thanks to you and your brother."

Sam nodded, embarrassed. It wasn't usual for them to stick around long enough for people to thank them, or for the ones they had help to even realize what Sam and Dean had done and thank them.

The family motto of 'you do what you do and you shuddup about it' went farther than keeping the family trade a secret... it also meant that Winchesters were ill equipped to handle gratitude.

"It's our job," Sam offered, his gaze going back to the smelly thing still burning on the fire. 'Our job', however, didn't usually ended with Sam having no idea what it was that they'd just killed. Or what had killed it.

Even though Sam had never actually seen one, he knew one thing for sure... that black, furry thing was no Succubus. And what was even more odd about it was that Dean seemed to know what it was but wasn't sharing that knowledge with Sam.

Dean had never done that. Hide facts about himself, hide information about their father and their lives prior to the fire; that Sam was used to. But withholding intel on the hunts they were in? No... they both knew how dangerous that could be.

Deep down, Sam had his suspicions over what that might mean. In the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind, Sam kept on replaying the look on Dean's face when Sam had shot the thing that was attacking him. It hadn't been relief, as one would expect over the fact that Sam had stopped that monster from doing to Dean what it had been doing to the young men of the Cahuilla tribe; it had been something more visceral and dark. Surprise. Fear. Shame.

"It's him, isn't it?" Ahtuapu's voice cut through Sam's thoughts. "The one you want to save from a deal... it's your brother."

Sam turned his eyes away from the fire, blinking to clear his vision from the white licks of flame that lingered. The older man was looking intensively at him, a piece of paper in his hand. Sam took it and opened. Inside, there was a set of instructions and a complicated symbol.

"Is this—" Sam couldn't help but ask. In the excitement of the hunt, he'd completely forgotten about his agreement with the older man, about learning of a way to stop Dean's deal. It seemed anticlimactic that the solution to the problem that had been stealing his sleep for the past months could fit in such a small piece of paper. "Will this work?"

"It is an ancient ritual that my ancestors used before going into battle. Chosen warriors would wear this and were said to be untouchable. Neither man, nor beast from above or below could mar their skin," Ahtuapu said, not a single note of doubt in his tone. "This will work."

Sam carefully folded the piece of paper and placed inside his pocket. "Thank you," he said, trying to encompass in those two short words all the emotions and gratitude that he was feeling in that moment. "This is..."

"The least I could do after what you and your brother did for us," the Chief finished for him. "One thing though," he warned before Sam could move away. At the other end of the camp, they could see Dean exiting Morning Dew's tent in a rather hurried way and walking towards them.

"Yes?" Sam said, spit drying to dust inside his mouth. The last thing that the almost-hope that had surged inside his chest wanted to hear was a 'but' in this trade.

"Once you do the ritual, you must be aware that no –no one- will be able to cut, pierce or affect your brother's skin in any form."

Sam's eyebrows gathered above his nose. How was that a bad thing? "I don't follow."

"When the thing that made the deal with your brother comes to collect, it won't be able to touch him or harm him in any way, but it goes the same for other things. No tattoos, no piercings... if he gets as much as a simple appendicitis, no doctor will be able to cut into him either."

Sam's breath caught in his lungs. It was a huge decision to make, but one that he would have to make for Dean without consulting him, because if he was to even approach such discussion with his brother, Sam would drop dead immediately.

"Okay," Sam whispered, meeting the older man's eyes to let him know that Sam understood how important and final that decision was.

"You ready to go?" Dean asked as soon as he reached them. He threw one look at the monster's remains, little more than a pile of ash now, before fixing his eyes on Sam. He looked jittery, ready to move on, anxious to leave that place.

Sam figured that the hand, swaddled in wrappings and hanging from Dean's neck might have something to do with that. "Yeah, we're done here," Sam agreed, ready to get his brother into the car and drive directly to the nearest clinic where they could x-ray that wrist. It was Dean's right hand, and Sam was taking no chances with it.

Ahtuapu shook Dean's other hand, his touch lingering a moment longer than it would be normal and expected of the gesture. In the older man's face ran a series of emotions that seemed odd to Sam. Understanding, for one. And compassion.

"I see Morning Dew has spoken to you," the Chief said, finally releasing Dean's hand.

Dean actually took a step back and threw a look towards the tent he'd just vacated. He cleared his throat before looking squarely at the man. "Yeah... she's a... I'm very sorry for her loss."

"As we all are," Ahtuapu agreed. "But now we can start making plans for tomorrow."

Dean cleared his throat again, his gaze flickering to Sam before returning to the Native American man. "There were some... findings in the autopsy of Morning Dew's son," Dean started, seeming unsure on how to word what he was about to say. "It would be best if the remaining kids who were... attacked... it's best that they're checked out by a doc, okay?"

Ahtuapu nodded, restraining from asking all the questions that Sam wanted to ask himself.

Dean nodded back, a sort of silent agreement settled between the two of them, before he turned his back and walked to the Impala.

Sitting on the passenger seat of his own car, Dean didn't open his mouth until Sam turned on the blinkers and parked in front of the first opened clinic he could find.

TBC... soon, I hope :)


AN: As always, my biggest thank you to Jackfan2, for her tireless beta-work in this story, also know as 'the one that never ends'. All remaining mistakes are mine.