Sam thought as quickly as he could. Holding out his hand towards his brother, Sam pushed Dean with his powers, sending him away from the hellhounds just inches before they reached him.

Lilith snapped her fingers again, and the dogs promptly sat down,

still glaring and growling at Dean, who was getting back up to his feet.

"Nice one there Sammy. For that I'll hold my puppies off, just for a moment. But you must know, pushing him out of the way only delayed the attack. My puppies will eat him, tearing him up into teeny bit sizes pieces, my favorite."

Sam cringed when she used his nickname. "I won't let you do that."

Lilith giggled, her high pitched laugh echoing through the house. "There's nothing you can do about it Sammy, you're obviously not strong enough. Big brother is going back where he belongs and this time he won't be getting out."

"He's a lot stronger than you realize, bitch." Dean took a step forward and Lilith promptly held out her hand in response. Dean froze and began to choke, blood dripping from his mouth.

"Dean!" Sam called out. He raised his own hand, just getting past Lilith's defenses before she pushed his powers back.

"Owie! That actually stung!" Lilith sat down on the bottom step, crossing her small legs and petting the monstrous dog at her feet. The vicious things were snarling at Sam, bloody teeth bared and just waiting to dig into some flesh.

"Too bad I knew what you've been doing," Lilith continued. "Drinking that demon's blood so you could try to kill me."

She still thought they were trying to kill her, and she was playing along, acting like she didn't want to die. Sam risked a glance over at his brother, who was now back on his hands and knees, breathing heavily from whatever Lilith did to him. The stupid bitch was going to drag this out, play around with them until she unleashed the dogs on Dean.

"Now, I'm not going to say all the same crap as my colleagues did. I'm not going to tell you that your brother is tricking you and that he's not the same person he was before." She glared over at Dean. "Because for some damn reason, Hell didn't affect him like it did everyone else. He somehow still cares about you; all the demons knew that, they just wanted to get you to not believe it."

Lilith hopped off the step, getting closer to Sam. "I know you won't fall for that, big guy. Because it's not the truth, so guess what? I'm going to tell you the truth."

She walked right up to Sam and grabbed into his leg, hugging it. "He's turning you into a monster, you know? A big scary powerful monster that drinks blood. You're hardly human anymore and one day, you're going to slip up and you're going to hurt people. You have enough of this blood and you'll just turn into one of us..."

Sam knew she was saying this stuff to get him angry enough to kill her, but he couldn't help but react. He pushed out with all the strength and Lilith flew off his leg and into the wall.

"You have no idea what you're talking about, you have no clue what I'm about to do!"

"Hehe, of course I do, you want to kill me!" There was a hint of a triumphant smile on her face.

"No." Sam took a step closer, feeling his powers grow stronger. Soon, she would begin to fight him, and he had to be ready. "Killing you unleashes Lucifer, silly, Crowley has a special cage in Hell waiting just for you, and that's where I'm sending you."

Lilith's small eyes grew wide and white as she began to understand what her true fate was. "No!" She started to panic, but Sam held on right, just barely keeping her from escaping.

Lilith's face went from scared to angry. She turned towards the hounds, trying to find any way out. "Get him!"

Expecting the dogs to go towards Dean like all the signs had been pointing to, Sam was shocked when he saw them barging right towards him instead.

He couldn't let go of Lilith though. Not until they tore him away from her. Wasn't he supposed to be Lucifer's vessel? Why would Lilith want to kill him if he was needed in the Apocalypse? Maybe they wouldn't attack; maybe Lilith was going to stop them at the last second and try to trick him into releasing her.

Either way, all Sam could think of was that at least Dean was safe. At least they wouldn't tear him apart.

The growls got louder. Maybe Lilith would just kill him; the dogs were inches away now. Sam held onto Lilith as one leapt up into the air, about to jump on top of him…

In the blink of an eye, Dean suddenly appeared right at Sam's side, coming right between his brother and the charging dog. The hellhound didn't seem to care who its victim was as it pounced on Dean, sending him flying to the floor behind Sam with a loud thud.

The self-sacrificing idiot teleported himself in the way!

Sam heard the first tear of flesh and the loud scream from his brother and cringed, eyes watering.

The strength of his powers waned a little, but as soon as he felt Lilith begin to gain control, he pushed her back, slamming her body even harder against the wall. She was trying to teleport away, but as long as Sam kept a hold on her, she wasn't going anywhere.

"He's going to go to hell Sam! You let me go and I'll send them off of him! Otherwise you're going to lose that big brother of yours!"

Dean's screams began to quiet and were replaced by the gurgling of blood in his throat. No. No! Sam wasn't going to lose him!

"You're still going to lose!" Lilith was yelling again. "You'll prevent the Apocalypse and get rid of me but I have followers! They're going to destroy your precious world until it's time to try and unleash our King again! No matter what, you lose!"

Concentrating as hard as he could and using the anger inside him to fuel him, Sam reached his powers to grab onto Lilith's soul. It was slow going, but each noise that he heard from his brother gave him more strength. He needed to save Dean. He couldn't let Dean go to Hell. He couldn't let him down again.

The small body Lilith was riding in buckled, wisps of black smoke falling out of the little girl's mouth. Knowing Dean didn't have a lot more time, Sam pulled harder. The smoke came out much faster; the eyes of the little girl went back to blue as the white faded away.

Sam felt himself growing weak but he knew he had one final push left in him. With his remaining strength, he grabbed onto the smoke soul as tight as he could, sending his hand toward him quickly, and then down. The soul whipped out of the body and blasted right through the floor.

Sam felt the soul unattach from his powers and he fell to his hands and knees. He did it! He had sent Lilith back to hell! Now Crowley, who was waiting in Hell, would take care of the rest and lock her up in the cage he made. Sam hoped Dean was...

Dean!

Sam stood up, his head spinning, and glanced over at his big brother.

What he saw made him nearly throw up.

Dean's chest was a disgusting mess of skin and bone; once again some of his organs were visible. His left leg looked like it had been mauled on and then whipped to the side, the bone snapped and the leg at an awkward angle. There was blood everywhere; large cuts marred every part of Dean's body, even his face.

And he wasn't breathing.

No! Nonononono!

Sam rushed over to Dean's side, falling to the ground beside him, ignoring the fact that he was crouching in a pool of his brother's blood.

Sam lifted Dean's head just as he did a year ago and stared into those black eyes that weren't moving. No! No! He had been so fast! Dean couldn't be gone!

"Sam!"

The younger brother was vaguely aware of the front door opening and Bobby's voice calling his name. Once he felt the older hunter's hand on his shoulder, he snapped.

"Leave me alone! Can't you see that I failed my brother again? I did everything I could and I still couldn't save him!"

Bobby's expression was confused. "Sam he's..."

"He's back in Hell! You don't need to rub it in! He saved my damn life yet again and I couldn't fucking protect him! He's gone because I wasn't fast enough!"

"No, Sam...look..."

"You're going to help me get him back! I'm not leaving him down there because of my mistakes! I'm not letting him suffer aga..."

"He's not in Hell, you dumbass!" It was Ruby's voice this time and Sam looked over at the demon. "His eyes are still black! How could they be black if there's no demon inside?"

It dawned on the younger brother that she was right. But...

"But he's not breathing!"

"Demons don't need to breathe, not technically! He's probably in shock. They just destroyed his body and he probably passed out for the pain. But he's still in there."

Then Sam remembered when Dean's neck had been snapped by Castiel. The same thing had happened. While Dean's body was technically dead and started to heal itself, Dean had still been inside. Just not awake.

It was then when Sam calmed himself enough to remember that he could see Dean's soul. He took a deep breath and concentrated with the small amount of strength he had left.

A soul became visible inside Dean's body. Sam laughed with joy upon immediately recognizing it as Dean's soul. He was moving sluggishly around, but he was still there. He would be okay.

"He probably won't awake in that body for a while," Bobby said, cringing at the gruesome injuries. "You should let him out for a while like you did at my place, let you guys see each other."

Sam was surprised that Bobby had thought of that, but he couldn't agree more. He wanted nothing else than to see his brother in that moment, demon soul or not, it didn't matter.

It didn't take much strength for Sam to pull Dean's familiar and willing soul out of his body. As soon as Sam let go, Dean's soul rushed over, floating in front of Sam and sparking with worry.

Sam laughed, tears in his eyes. "I'm fine Dean, I'm tired but I'm perfectly fine."

Dean didn't waste any more time before sparking happily and wrapping himself around Sam's shoulders. This time, the younger brother didn't mind.

"We did it big brother." Sam laughed, heading over to the couch and plopping down. Bobby walked over to check in the body of the little girl and Ruby leaned against the wall across from them, smirking at Sam.

"What happened outside with those demons?" Sam asked her.

Ruby shrugged. "No big deal. We handled them. I'm surprised the old coot was as good as he was." Bobby glared over at Ruby at those words.

"They disappeared for a while," Bobby continued. "We weren't sure what was going on but figured it was part of a trap to get us off guard. It
was. They ended up popping back and we were holding them off, just barely. Then they suddenly stopped, looking real scared and vanished again."

"That's when we figured you took care of Lilith," Ruby said.

"But Lilith said...she told me that even if I send her back to Hell, we still lose. That humanity is still going to die and she said something about followers. Do you think all this was just talk, or there's really something going on?"

Ruby shrugged yet again. "It's hard to believe they wouldn't have something planned. Maybe that's where all the demons attacking us vanished to. To take care of whatever Lilith had planned. The demons will be pretty pissed knowing Lucifer isn't going to rise, I can totally see them trying to take down humanity. Don't know how they'd do that though, it's a lot easier said than done, trying to get demons to cooperate with each other."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. But what...what if whatever they have planned doesn't necessarily need them to all cooperate and work together?" Sam questioned.

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'm just worrying too much." Just then Dean sent a shock through Sam's neck, letting him know he agreed. "Quit it man!"

Ruby chuckled at what Dean had just done. "Doesn't make sense to worry. If they had something planned, it will happen anyway. There's nothing you could do about it."

Bobby walked over to them, carrying the little girl's limp body. "She's gone," he said quietly. "But I figured so. She wouldn't have been anywhere near okay after what she experienced anyway."

"Well, I'm leaving town, so I might as well take her and dump her off at a hospital," Ruby said in a casual tone.

Bobby narrowed his eyes, obviously he didn't want Ruby to take the girl, but he wasn't going to leave the brothers. Besides, she was already dead; there was nothing else they could do for her. "Fine. But you better do what you say. They'll be able to identify her and if Lilith didn't kill of the parents, they be contacted," Bobby said sadly but then added as an afterthought, "Oh, and then you stay away."

"You think I want to come back and see you?" Ruby grabbed the body from Bobby. "Anyway, I'll keep in touch with you two." She turned to the brothers and then winked directly at Dean's smoke-cloud, who sparked angrily in response.

God, they were still somehow bickering even though Dean couldn't talk.

Luckily, Ruby said no more as she vanished into thin air with the little girl.

Bobby let out a long sigh and then stared at Dean's torn up body on the floor. "You better get back in there Dean, it's gonna start rotting and we need to begin attempting to patch you up."

Dean's soul shocked Sam once again. Sam felt for his brother, he didn't want Dean going back into his body just to feel all the pain of those mortal wounds. It must be so freeing and painless in the smoke form, but he had to go back or else his body would never heal.

Sam stood up, trying to brush Dean off his shoulders unsuccessfully. "I'm sorry dude, but I have to do it. I promise I'll take care of you though, and I'll be right by your side when you wake up."

If Dean had been in his body right now, he'd be rolling his eyes, Sam was sure of it. But instead Dean floated off his brother's shoulders and headed over toward Bobby who raised an eyebrow.

"You better not try anything funky or your smoky-ass is gonna get it," Bobby warned.

Dean ignored him and floated right onto Bobby's shoulders as well.

"Oh no, Sam might be okay with that, but I'm not." Bobby failed to hide his smirk. "You're not the most fashionable scarf anyway, Dean."

With that comment, Dean sent a spark of electricity through Bobby's shoulders.

Bobby yelped and batted at Dean, who quickly and smartly hurried away.

"You're lucky that you're already beat to hell, or you'd be getting it! Now get back in that body of yours before I change my mind and send you to Hell myself!"

Sam laughed at the exchange, the mood lightened for just a moment as he put his brother's soul back where it belonged.

Dean opened his eyes slowly with a groan, pain filling his senses to the point where it was almost unbearable, almost.

"Hey, you're awake!" Sam's happy voice called out and immediately Dean's vision was blocked by a big, shaggy head.

"Stop hoverin' in front of me...stupid...," Dean mumbled. Realizing that his bad arm was in the sling and probably in horrible shape, Dean tried to reach up with his other arm and bat Sam away but ended up cringing and letting out a cry of pain instead.

Sam immediately grew worried, of course, and gently pushed Dean's arm back down. "Just relax, okay? It's been two days since the attack. You're still really injured and I think it's going to take a while to heal. We'll stay here until you're back up to a hundred percent."

Dean managed a smirk. "Yeah, it's not like we have anything on our list that we have to do." He paused, and couldn't hide the pride that was in his voice at his next statement. "You did it Sammy."

"We did it, Dean."

"No. You did it Sammy, I just stood there with you."

"Are you forgetting the part where you jumped between me and the hellhounds? You saved my life Dean, yet again. It was stupid but I want to thank you."

"Yeah, well, I'm just that awesome," Dean smirked.

Sam smiled in response. "I couldn't have done it without you. You have no idea how much your support meant to me, that you helped me through this and never left my side."

Sam's eyes were watering, stupid baby. It looked like Dean could only do one thing, great.

He reached out his good arm, ignoring the sharp stabs of pain. "Come here, you idiot."

Sam didn't waste any time as he leaned over and wrapped his big brother in his arms, gently at first.

"I'm not gonna break, I'm hurt but I'm a damn demon. I think I'm pretty strong, I can handle it."

Sam chuckled and didn't need to be told twice as he hugged Dean tighter, the older brother holding on with all the strength he possessed with his good arm. Why not?

When they finally let go, Sam wiped at his tears and stood up.

"Think you can stay awake for a bit? I had Bobby go out and buy some pie for you..."

"Are you seriously asking me that?"

"I guess you're right. It was a pretty stupid question." Sam chuckled.

"You got that right. Anyway...what about...what about the blood Kool-Aid shit?"

Sam sat down on the bed and shrugged. "I've been drinking the leftover bottles we packed for the past few days."

"You know you can stop now. I didn't want to make you drink it in the first place. I know it's weird."

"Well...I mean...I have pretty good control over them. Don't you think? I was able to send Lilith back to Hell. I mean, I don't know if I was strong enough to get her soul if she hadn't brought her defenses down and let me in. But once I was able to latch on, she couldn't escape them. So I..."

"You can keep using them Sammy."

"I just...you just said they're weird..."

"No." Dean rolled his eyes. Stupid little brothers. "I assumed you might think it's weird. I'm a demon, why the hell would I think that your powers are weird?"

"So you think it's okay if I continue? It could really help when we're hunting down demons and I could use them to help you if you got in trouble."

"Would I let you continue if I thought it was too dangerous?"

Sam sent a small smile Dean's way and then looked down at his hands. "No, I guess not." He then started busying himself with checking on Dean's bandages, specifically the ones on his bad arm.

"Then what's still eating at ya Sammy? I can see right through you. Come on, spit it out."

Sam looked like he was going to refuse to speak, but then thought better of it. "I...I just wanted to make sure...you're not gonna go disappearing on me are you? Like you had originally planned…"

"Why are you bringing this shit up again? To make me feel bad?"

"No, Dean..." Sam re-wrapped the bandage he was inspecting and looked his brother straight in his black eyes. "I just wanted to make sure, is all. It's finally over and...and I just wanted to make sure I'm still gonna have my brother by my side after all of this."

Dean rolled his eyes and would have punched Sam or pushed him off the bed with his powers if he had the strength. "You're gonna have to try harder to get rid of me. Now if you, on the other hand, don't want to follow your demonic brother around..."

"Don't even start," Sam interrupted and shook his head wildly. "You should know by now that there's nowhere else I want to be. So just shut up."

Well all right, Dean would take that. "Fine, bossy little brat. Now why don't you go give me that pie bitch, and hurry up!"

Sam's happy laugh made the stupid hug almost worth it.

A week and a half later, Dean was boredly flipping through the cannels of the old TV that they had found left in the basement and hooked up. The house that they were staying in was vacant, up for sale, and normally wouldn't have electricity but that had all changed because Dean was an awesome demon.

It didn't take much to concentrate with his powers and start up the electricity when there shouldn't have been any. Really, how cool was that?

Dean's bad arm was still giving him trouble and was still in the sling. He was struggling to keep the plate of pie in his lap and grab a forkful when something on the news caught his attention.

"Earlier this morning, a man down on Fifth Street claims he was bitten by his neighbor. The attacker apparently would not listen to reason, and seemed animal-like. When police confronted the man, he went to attack the officers and was brought down in self-defense. The police chief claims that the man seemed unaffected by any of the gunshots until a bullet to the head took him down. Two similar incidents have happened in neighboring towns, with the victims being bitten by their attackers who were described as seeming as if they wanted to eat their victims alive..."

"Hey, Sammy!" Dean called for his brother and turned back to the TV, waiting for any other news. Instead, the reporter went onto a new story, about the swine flue vaccine being available at the local hospital.

"Yeah?" Sam bounded down the stairs, his hair wet from the shower.

"They just had this story on the news. Dude bit someone. There were two similar incidents too. Think we should..."

Sam shook his head stubbornly. "No. No, we are not looking into it. You can hardly walk in a straight line."

"I'm fine!"

"No you're not, and you know it. We're not going on a hunt until you're better. We can call another hunter to take care of it."

"We can at least keep tabs on it. I'm bored out of my mind dude!"

Sam sighed. "Yeah, we can do that." He brought over his extra laptop that he always kept in the Impala and dropped it next to Dean. "Go crazy. And no porn searching. I don't want any viruses."

Actually, searching for porn was far from Dean's mind. He had a strange feeling about the cannibal people, and he was determined to get to the bottom of this.

It was less than a week later when Dean had enough. Everyday, the news reported more odd behavior by residents of the town and neighboring towns who were acting crazy and trying to bite people.

Then came the big news, a son that got bit in the arm by his father had gone crazy as well.

Whatever this was, it was spreading. There was more news of outbreaks in other towns throughout the country as well and people were beginning to worry. The news was broadcasting that it may be a mutation of the Swine Flu or effects from the disease. The vaccine was being duplicated at an alarming rate to make up for all the people who were desperate to not go crazy.

Something was up with that vaccine, Dean bet. This sounded damn serious and they needed to get serious about this too.

"Shit.." Dean grumbled as he came up with a bit of alarming information.

Bobby put down the gun he was cleaning on the couch across from Dean. "What's got your panties in a twist?"

"The Swine Flu vaccine….guess what city was one of the first to get it? The one we're in. And the ones that are reporting major outbreaks of these crazy cannibal people were also given the vaccine right around the same time."

"So you think this vaccine is…"

"I think it's a virus in its own. It's making people go batshit crazy and is hiding under the false name of a vaccine."

Sam suddenly stepped out of the kitchen, overhearing the conversation. "But the vaccine…isn't it becoming available across the country?"

"Even worse," Dean replied. "Try the entire planet."

The plate of food Sam had been carrying for Dean fell to the ground and shattered. "Oh my god, what if…what if this is what Lilith was talking about? The fall of humanity!"

"We don't know that yet, Sam…," Bobby began.

"But the only way we're gonna find out is if we get the hell outta here. This is one of the first places it started and I don't want to deal with crazy cannibals. Bobby's house is the best place where we can research."

"But Dean you're…"

"Don't even start with saying I'm too weak! I'm fine; it's just my leg that's acting up now. We have to get out of here and try to get to the bottom of this."

Sam looked over at their friend for possible support. "Bobby…"

The older hunter shook his head. "No, Dean's right. I have the books and equipment to research properly. Dean's perfectly fine to travel."

Dean went to stand up and Sam rushed over to help him. "Are you sure…?"

"Yes! You think sitting my ass in the Impala is too much for me to handle?"

"No..."

"Then let's get our shit packed up and leave, I want to get out of here as soon as we can."

They were able to pack up in fifteen minutes and then Sam helped his brother into the passenger seat and they were off.

However, they didn't get very far.

Just as they were about to pull onto another side street, a screaming woman jumped right in front of the car, snarling.

Sam yelled and slammed on the breaks, even Dean let out a yelp. Bobby was as pale as a ghost.

The woman didn't even attempt to move out of the way as she flew over the roof of the Impala, a sickening crack was heard and Sam rushed out of the car as fast as he could.

"Oh my god!" He knelt down to check her pulse when the woman suddenly reached up and grabbed his hand. She opened her mouth, her teeth bloody and a loan groan escaped from her throat. Oh my god...she was infected…she was going to bite him!

The noise of a gunshot echoed through the street and a bullet hole appeared in the woman's skull, blood splattering all over Sam's hair. The younger brother backed up quickly, scooting on his butt, his body shaking and looked up just in time to see Ruby walk over and kick the woman in the face.

"You owe me, Winchester," she sighed.

"What the hell was that?" Dean was limping out of the car, Bobby following and the older brother gingerly kneeled at Sam's side. "You okay, Sammy?"

"I'm fine, but…she tried to bite me!" He looked back up at Ruby. "What's going on?"

"That, my not-so-friends was a Croat."

"A what? What the fuck?" Dean asked, still keeping a hand on Sam's shoulder.

"Turns out, it was Lilith's back up plan, that Swine Flu virus, it's full of something called the Croatoan Virus, you boys familiar with that?"

Both brothers shared a knowing look with each other, remembering the time when Sam had been infected and an entire town had gone crazy.

"I'll take that as a yes. Well they've apparently been working on perfecting this virus, and it was to be sent out if Lucifer failed to be released."

Ruby shrugged, kicking the dead body at her feet once more.

"Looks like the world is going to hell anyway, boys."

End

Stay tuned for the coming sequel "Roads Untraveled"!