A/N: Howdy gang! First things first, thanks to Sallyannerenee, Bjester74, shadowhuntingdauntlessdemigod, zekeschance, Xeraphina Laurentia, SammysGirl42, lenail125, NightReader22, celinenaville, DearHart, hectatess, and spnfanforlife for their positivity. It means a lot.

This chapter is tagged to 3x05, Bedtime Stories. Great episode, and I hope you guys think it's a great chapter. Leave me a review and let me know, please!

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me.


mortality, n.

"Look sir, it's okay if—" Sam began to reassure, knowing that Kyle, the man in the hospital bed, was probably still reeling for the recent tragedies that had taken place. Attacked by some psychotic killer who tears his victims to shreds, plus the fact that the two victims were Kyle's brothers was enough for Sam to take pity on him. Reliving those memories was a hardship Sam did not begrudge him.

"No. No! Those were my brothers. This guy, he…he killed my brothers. How would you feel?"

Sam paused, feeling both Kyle's and Dean's resting upon him. Kyle had to have had no idea how that question would affect his interrogator, but it affected Sam all the same. After all, he knew exactly how it felt to fear for his brother's safety.

Sam laid on his stomach on the bed in the motel room, kicking his feet as he watched some documentary about penguins on the Discovery Channel. His chin rested on his folded hands as he watched the father penguin shuffle around with the egg while the mother went hunting. His feet banged against the headboard, which banged against the wall. Sam didn't care if management came over to tell him to keep it quiet. He was pissed.

Dean and Dad were out on a hunting trip. They'd only been gone a day and a half, but Sam had desperately wanted to go with them. It wasn't fair. He was ten years old! Dad had taken Dean on his first hunt at ten! Why didn't he get to go? He was just as smart and strong as Dean. Did Dad think he wasn't up to the task? Or was this Dean's fault, as Sam suspected?

Sam sent a particularly vicious kick back at the headboard, relishing in the resulting 'BANG!'. Dean always treated him like a baby. 'Well,' Sam thought smugly, thinking back to what he had said to Dean before he had left with Dad. 'I sure told him how I feel about being his baby brother!'

"BANG!" Sam jumped up as the sound echoed not from behind him, but from the left. He reached for the shotgun beside the bed as the door swung open from whatever had kicked it in. Sam cocked the gun and aimed it steadily at the misshapen mass that waddled through the door, groaning and moaning as though it was in pain.

"Sam…Sam…Sam…"

"Sammy…S—Sam—my..."

Sam held his finger lightly against the trigger. The thing sounded like it had two voices, which wasn't right. It couldn't. Unless it was some transfiguration spell that had gone horribly wrong, nothing had two voices, not even wendigos. At least, nothing he had ever researched or learned about from his father.

"Sam, damnit, are you listening to me? Shut the damn door and get your ass over here!" John's voice cut through his preponderance like a sharply serrated knife.

Sam scrambled to follow the orders, shaking his head at his idiocy. He should've recognized Dad's voice calling him, but where was Dean? Why did Dad look so strange in the darkness? And who the heck did that second voice belong to?

"S—Sammy…"

Sam rushed over as John deposited Dean on the second bed, making sure to keep him rolled on his left side.

Sam swallowed back the bile and the scream that had risen up in his throat at the same time. Dean didn't look like Dean. Dean was supposed to come running in after a hunt, throw himself obnoxiously on the bed next to Sam so that he bounced a couple of times, steal the remote and turn on wrestling. He was supposed to noogie his younger brother, call him squirt or shorty or pipsqueak before pulling the covers up so that Sam was covered, roll over, and go to sleep. Dean wasn't supposed to be covered in blood, moaning in pain with his right arm pressed against his ribcage. Sam wasn't supposed to be able to see flashes of white where his brother's ribs were. Dean was supposed to be as opaque as frosted glass, not see through.

"Sam!" John gave him a sharp swat to get his youngest son moving. "Hold his head so he doesn't move!"

"Dad, what happened?" Sam inquired desperately as he moved to follow, gingerly climbing onto the bed and lifting his big brother's head into his lap and bracing his hands on Dean's bare shoulders.

"I don't know, Sam!" John growled as he popped open his flask of holy water. Dean screamed as the blessed water came into contact with his multiple wounds. "His head wasn't in it! I've never seen your brother so distracted during a hunt!" John shoved a roll of gauze into Dean's panting mouth as he followed up the Holy water with a fifth of Ketel One vodka. Dean let out a muffled moan before sagging back into Sam, eyes closed.

"Dean! Dad! Dean!"

"Leave him, Sam. It's better that he's out for this." Sam closed his eyes as Dad pulled out the dental floss and fishhook.

The next couple of days were one long, endless drag for Sam. Dean remained unconscious as they quickly packed up their stuff, laid Dean out in the backseat of the Impala, and headed to South Dakota so that he could properly heal at Bobby's. Sam knew that he wouldn't be able to sleep or eat until Dean woke up, especially with the guilt of his final words to Dean before the hunt weighing on his mind, heart, and soul.

There had been a lot of close calls when it came to Dean's mortality, and Sam could vividly remember them all. Every drop of blood, every tear in Dean's eye as he realized that this time, he may actually die. But this? Staring down a rapidly declining clock, with all the tortures of Hell waiting at the buzzer if Sam didn't come up with some Hail Mary of a play? This was the closest Dean had ever come to death.

Sam looked up and briefly caught Dean's sad, thoughtful, but determined eyes. He looked back at Kyle, who didn't look like he was expecting an answer, but Sam knew that he had to give one anyway. Sam could see himself in Kyle, and that scared him. He refused to be weak in the face of Dean's deal. He would save him, because the alternative would be too much to bear.

"Can't imagine anything worse."


A/N: Thanks for all the love guys. Spread it everywhere! See you all on Tuesday! (I know I usually have longer author's notes, but This Is Us was just on and my eyes won't stop leaking water).