Chapter 10

A/N: So, this is the last chapter proper of my first ever fic! Finally finished and posted now Xmas is out of the way. There is an epilogue to come where Dean and Cas have a bit of a chat, maybe that damned angel will be a bit nicer this time (maybe he won't as well ;-)).

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They gathered their weapons quickly, pausing only for Sam to bind Dean's hand with a sleeve torn hastily from a clean shirt. Then the duffel was thrown in the trunk and Dean was at the driver's side door, opening it with his good hand. Sam's fist wrapped around his shoulder before he had even ducked his head inside.

"I'm driving, Dean."

"No you're not, little bro," Dean wheezed.

"Dean-"

"You want to stand around and argue about this while Tim is killing someone? I'm driving because my voice is shot." He coughed throatily to prove his point. "Someone who sounds half alive needs to get on the 'phone and find out where these kids live."

Sam shook his head. "No. We need to burn the school down. Even if he's not there Tim's still attached to it, it'll still work. Now give me the keys."

The blood was pumping harder around Dean's body as he kept his grip on the Impala's door. He could feel his pulse throbbing in his fingertips, tingling lips, adam's apple. "Are you kidding me, Sam? We haven't got time to set fire to a school and wait until every inch of it is obliterated. We need get those idiot jocks out of their houses and somewhere safe!"

Sam glared for a second, features tight, then something slipped. "All right, Dean," he said, turning away to make his way round to the passenger side. Dean couldn't quite make out what he said next, figured he wasn't meant to. It sounded a little like Whatever you need.

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The engine revved at a T-junction while Sam politely told the school secretary that, yes, he knew it was Sunday, very sorry for disturbing you at home ma'am, but he needed the addresses of two football players right now or else... they wouldn't be getting their new uniforms in time for... the state game on Thursday.

Dean rolled his eyes, thinking: you better hope she knows squat about football, Sammy. Then whispered in his brother's ear: "Trey and Scott."

"Trey and Scott?" Sam repeated hopefully. Scribbled in a notepad while Dean's foot pumped the accelerator. Testing the muscles in his thigh, ankle.

"Okay, thank you." Sam threw his cell on the dashboard and grabbed a map from down by his feet, pocket flashlight shining. "We got 1211 Linacre and 422 Sanderman. They're three miles apart in opposite directions."

Dean released the clutch and inched the car forwards, waiting for further instruction. Sam stayed quiet, flicking light back and forth across the map.

"What, you want me to choose?" Dean asked, voice a note higher than he'd aimed for. When he turned his head to look at Sam his brother was squinting out of the window.

"You're driving, man. Scott or Trey. Left or right."

Dean chose right, looking in that direction, towards Sam, thinking about the painful randomness of who gets to live and who dies. Tires squealed.

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The fire was visible as soon as they turned into the street, an orange hue to the night sky. Fire trucks with lights flashing. Dean squeezed the accelerator just a little harder, even though he knew that extra half second would make no difference.

They were too late.

As they drew closer body bags were visible on the lawn, laid out neatly side-by-side. Three. A whole family. He slammed on the brakes and did a u-turn, handbrake crunching.

"Fuck!" he spat. "This ghost better be a slow mover otherwise we'll be too late for Scott too." His right palm burned as he squeezed the steering wheel.

They didn't stop for red lights. The Impala swerved around a lone pedestrian, overtook a slow moving car with less room than was safe. Horns blared as blinding headlights came at them and the steering wheel spun to the right at the last second.

Dean saw Sam's body tense out of the corner of his eye, but his brother didn't say anything. This was no time for Slow down, Dean, you'll get us killed. As if Sam knew that adrenaline and fear and someone else's mortality was all that was distracting Dean from his own.

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He heard Sam let out a long breath as they turned into Sanderman Road. The whole street was visible and there was no fire. Yet. The Impala screeched to a halt outside number 422. Lights were on, shadows moved behind the curtains.

Dean flung open the car door and ran faster than he thought his rubbery legs would allow, barely hearing Sam shouting after him, his brother's footsteps pounding behind his. He rang the stupid melodic bell, banged the knocker, hard, over and over again. "Come on!" he shouted, starting to pound on the door with his bare fists. The makeshift bandage fell to the floor.

"Dean." Sam grasped his arm. "Someone's coming. Calm down or they'll come out here with a shotgun."

Dean's arms dropped obediently, one reaching inside his jacket to feel for the handgun loaded with iron rounds. He looked around the empty street and back again. Come on, come on. His heart pounded in his ears, lungs heaved.

The door opened an inch, then another before the chain caught it. The eyes of a middle aged man appeared in the small gap.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" he growled.

Sam's strong arms pulled Dean out of the way. "Please listen to me," Sam said earnestly. "We're here to help you. You need to get your family out of the house, away from here, now."

Dean fumbled in his pocket for whatever ID he could find. But before his shaking fingers could retrieve anything useful, the door slowly opened with a clatter of the chain, and a large man stood square in the center of the opening. His bulky frame filled the whole doorway. Arms crossed.

A voice sounded from inside. "Dad? What's going on?" Footsteps on the stairs.

"Scott?" Dean shouted as loud as his throat would allow him.

"Dean-"

"Scott, get out of the house, now!"

"What's going on, Dad?" The boy reached the bottom of the stairs and hung back behind his father.

"I don't know, Scott. Stay inside." The man uncrossed his arms to hold the doorframe firmly, one hand on each side.

"Please, sir, we need you to trust us," Sam pleaded.

The man's eyes looked Dean up and down.

Then Dean caught a glimpse of a small girl that had appeared at Scott's leg. "Scotty," she squeaked, "there's a strange boy in the kitchen says he wants to talk to you. Will you come and talk to him?"

The man in the door turned around and back again, mouth gaping, forehead creased. The blonde haired girl wandered forward and tugged at his sleeve. "Daddy, he just appeared out of nowhere, how did he do that?"

Dean pushed past his brother and elbowed the man out of the way.

"Hey!" A chubby hand flailed at his arm but he whacked it away.

"Which way's the kitchen?" An arm swung at him and he ducked. "Which way or your kids are going to die."

"Scott, call the police."

Fuck, that wasn't what I meant.

A small voice piped up: "It's that way." The little girl pointed down the hallway and Dean didn't hesitate. Pushed fat guy onto his ass and ran for the kitchen, only just aware of Sam's voice behind him, still persuading the family to get outside.

Dean saw hell when the fireball flew past him, heat grazing his cheek. Flesh falling from bones that might have been his. The breath stuck in his throat. Lungs on fire. Only Sam shouting his name made the images retreat, replaced with reality: a blaze forming between him and his brother. Flames climbing the walls.

"Dean!"

"I'm okay! Get them out first!"

Dean's heart felt ready to burst out of his ribcage. Smoke began to irritate his throat and he was coughing, hacking. With gritted teeth he turned his back on the fire.

"Tim?" he managed to ask, creeping towards the open kitchen door with his gun held with both hands.

Tim stood in the center of the room, flickering. His voice was steady. Deeper than it ought to have been. "I want to kill him."

Dean felt dizzy. Smoke stung his eyes, heat raged behind his back.

"Don't hurt this family, Tim. You'll go to hell if you do." A memory of pain shot through his heart, sharp, knife-like. "You don't want to go to hell," he gasped. "Trust me." Gun poised, ready.

The voice became an innocent child again. "Hell is for bad people. Am I bad?" Tim's head tipped to the side.

"Four dead people says yes," Dean said hoarsely, before coughs overtook him again. One hand pressed against his chest. The gun wavered.

"Then a few more won't make any difference, will it?"

The widening of dead eyes, drop of a ghostly jaw. The spirit exploded into flames and Dean could see nothing else as it came at him. He fired a shot and took a quick step to the side, stumbling towards the fridge. Searing heat ripped through his arm and then he was groaning as his head connected with the fridge door.

Tim loomed in front of him, glowing, hot. Dean raised his gun again and got off a sloppy shot that somehow seemed to get its target. In a heartbeat Tim flickered and disappeared.

Dean's vision blurred. For an instant he doubted his aim, wondered if maybe Tim had managed to evaporate in the nick of time, but he was suddenly distracted because heat jumped up and down his left arm, and he saw his sleeve was on fire. He grabbed it with his damaged hand to smother the flames.

Bile rose in his throat as the burning pain spiked through his palm and extended to his fingers. He lurched to the sink and turned on the faucet, thrust his hand under the tepid water with a grimace.

Dean relaxed when he looked over his shoulder and saw the fire in the hall was smoldering and dying. He leaned over the sink and let his head hang, just breathing. Through the window in front of him, car engines roared and doors slammed. He could hear a murmur of voices and a woman crying. Thoughts raced through his head. The loudest thought of all: now Scott's safe, now we'll burn that fucking school.

Then the unmistakable sound of an explosion rattled the window. Dean's head snapped up. Another, deep, echoing. Time slowing. He shouted instinctively: "Sam!" When he looked through the glass he saw burning cars. The sobbing woman screamed.

He left the faucet running, ran for the open door. Legs sluggish under him. As he approached, the burning embers of the doorframe began to glow as if caught in a gentle wind. Dean froze, eyes locked on the growing red heat, sudden screams sounding in rhythm with his palpitating heart.

With a roar the frame burst into flames, fiery heat blasting into his face. Wood creaked. And in front of him, a flame shaped way out.

His feet stuck to the floor. He could see nothing, nothing, except those burning flames and the memories that leapt across them. The pain in his arm grew until he felt metal hooks digging into his shoulders. Knife blades penetrating every nerve. The iron smell of blood teased his senses, saturated his taste buds. A child's scream resounded in his head, then a woman's, then someone shouting for help. A voice begging for the pain to stop. His.

Amidst the screams, the real and remembered intertwining, one rose above the others. Deeper, stronger. Sam? Two feet edged closer to the flames.

An odd sound rose from the blackness, whining and urgent, and then he remembered where he was, because there were no police sirens in Hell.

"Sam!" he screamed, feet shuffling towards the fire. The acrid smell of singeing hair assaulted his nostrils, and he didn't pause to contemplate that it was his. He raised a shaking arm in front of his face, closed his eyes, and stumbled through the flames to the other side.

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When he reached the front of the house, breathless, Sam was prone on the damp grass, rolling from side to side. His brown jacket smoldered and a final flame was smothered out.

Before Dean could run to his brother, he saw them. A police car pulled up and little Stevie Shapiro barreled out. He saw them too, and vomited on the grass.

The father, wide eyed and dead. The mother, alive, holding the crying little girl tight against her. Scott's body, burned beyond all recognition.

Dean's gaze became transfixed. The skin on the corpse was scorched and red, blistered. Scott's hair was gone, bone shining through the contours of his face. Sinew and broken flesh exposed. Eyelids peeled away.

When Dean closed his eyes he could still see the distorted face, but in the horror of his memories it was his.

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It was as they stood high above the small town and watched the school burn that the adrenaline finally left Dean, his legs quivering before they gave out under him. But Sam caught him under his arms and lowered him gently to the ground.

"Easy Dean, I gotcha."

"I know," Dean mumbled incoherently, the power of speech leaving him momentarily.

Sam's hand was on his forehead and he leaned into it. "God, I thought you were feeling better, Dean."

"I am. S'all relative Sammy." Eyes fluttering. "'Flu's a bitch, huh."

"Do I need to take you to a doctor?" Sam asked, hand moving to cup Dean's face. Dean saw his brothers eyes shine in the moonlight.

"Maybe tomorrow," he wheezed. "Help me up." Fisting his hand into Sam's jacket. Strong arms lifting him to his feet and not letting go.

Sam slung Dean's arm over his shoulder and gripped him by the waist, one arm slinking behind his back. Guided him slowly, patiently towards the car.

Dean slumped bonelessly into the passenger seat. "Is it over?" he rasped.

"Yeah, it's over," Sam replied, starting the engine and driving them away.

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Dean thought about it for a long time before he finally said the words, pretending to be asleep as trees slipped by in the dark. "The other thing, Sam."

For a couple of seconds he wondered if Sam was going to reply. If this was going to be a painful monologue. The Impala's tires swished over wet tarmac as it began to rain.

"Are you going to tell me about it?" Sam finally asked, a barely noticeable tremor evident in his voice. He licked his lips and gulped hard.

Dean nodded. "I-" he started, and then paused as the tears that started to fall down his cheeks took him oddly by surprise. "I remember some of it," he continued, words shaking at the edges. "I remember being strung up by chains in this... this void." Salty taste at his lips. "And everything hurt, hurt so fucking much. There were these... hooks in my shoulders. There was blood, and bones and-"

"God, Dean." Sam veered to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes. Dean could see his brother's arms quaking as his hands tightened their grip on the wheel. Knuckles whitening. When Sam turned to face him his eyes were bright with pain.

"I remember screaming your name," Dean gulped, wondering how long he could carry on before the words would stick in his throat, "and sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can see-"

"Stop, Dean." Sam sobbed, "just, stop." He reached out to hold his brother's arm, fingers curling tightly around Dean's left bicep. His breath hitched, stopped, and then small gasps wracked him. "I'm sorry," he cried, and a flood of tears shone on his cheeks. "I'm so sorry."

"Not your fault, Sammy," Dean winced as Sam's hand gripped the painful spot where Lucifer had groped him. "Not your fault."