A/N: Well, kids, Dog's reached the big Five-Oh. Couldn't have done this without all your kind words and encouragement. I get a kick out of each and every review!

Dialogue paraphrased from "Wendigo" taken from Jensen Ross Ackles Fans (thank you, Aurelia). Chapter title taken from "Seek and Destroy" (Metallica). And oh yeah, I stole – ah, I mean borrowed some lines from the first "Batman" movie, with Michael Keaton.

I have no shame, but then ya'll knew that, right?

Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, darn it. Wait, I don't?

Dog Eat Dog

Chapter 50 – Seek and Destroy

000

Middle of Nowhere, New Mexico

That Same Night

They were hungry.

They stayed in the damp darkness of the burrow as long as they could. When the sun set and the shadows lengthened one of the brood moved towards the mouth of the burrow, and the rest followed. They had to eat.

The runt of the litter moved a little too slowly, a sure sign of weakness, and it squealed loudly as one of the larger ones snapped it up. It barely made a mouthful. The bigger one's silver eyes blinked reflectively in the gloom of the burrow as it chewed its litter mate up. Its spines waved lazily back and forth in the damp air. The others wanted a piece, but they knew better than to fight over it. Besides, there was plenty of food outside.

And one less mouth in here.

No great loss.

000

Sam arched his back and clawed at Cailym's fingers around his throat. She smiled and leaned forward. Sam's body bucked in her grip and she squeezed even tighter.

She wasn't quite sure how he'd been able to break her hold on him, but so far it wasn't doing the kid much good. He was taller than she was, but she had his toes off the ground quite effortlessly. The long muscles of his throat worked furiously as he tried to draw air into his tortured lungs. Wouldn't be long now.

He dropped his left arm down by his side, his elbow turned slightly inward. The only thing Caliym really knew about John was that his boys were his weakness. She knew she was a demon of the High Order and Sam was just a cast-off, the last of the yellow-eyed one's orphans.

She was going to win and this was going to be so easy. She could have snapped Sam's neck, but strangling the life out of the worrisome brat was much more entertaining.

Sam raised his left hand, palm up. It was like a magic trick. She heard a soft metal 'snick' as he slammed his palm against her stomach. Hard.

Caliym glanced down and barked laughter, sharp and surprised.

He stabbed me. He stabbed me. Huh. Stupid twit. She quirked an eyebrow at him and wagged her middle finger at him. Can't stop a demon that way, don't you know that?

Sam stared intently at the rip in her black lace dress. She followed his eyeline down. Thin wisps of black smoke seeped out into the night air, slowly at first, then in a torrent as the rip widened.

Caliym loosened her grip and staggered backwards, wide-eyed, as she clutched at the wound with one hand. Trails of black smoke boiled out between her fingers. She couldn't stop it, but she felt fine otherwise.

Sam stood slumped against the wall, his chest rising and falling in a more regular motion as he caught his breath. He stared at her, eyes narrowed, steady. She'd misjudged him, then. Let those puppy dog eyes mislead her in thinking he was harmless.

She stood there with her fingers pressed down over the wound and the grin she gave Sam was sly and somehow wolfish. She was a demoness of the uppermost Circle of Hell, and this shaggy puppy of a boy and his knife was a nuisance, nothing more.

She felt something pull sideways inside her body. The sensation made her stagger. Her eyes widened as she leaned forward and stared at the blade in Sam's hand. The runes inscribed in the metal glowed brightly, cold white light around the edges.

She looked down at herself and hissed, loud and low. Her skin collapsed in on itself underneath the black lace, a balloon with a low leak.

Caliym screamed out as she launched herself at Sam, her arms outstretched, her hands hooked into claws. She could still take him, take his body. Turn into smoke, seep into his skin, ram herself down his throat and fill him up, and wouldn't that be a bargaining chip to hold over the old man and the eldest son?

Sam didn't move.

She was five feet away from him, streaming black smoke into the air from her mouth and eyes, when her skin ripped open and the black smoke that came boiling out turned and twisted on itself before it faded away into nothing.

000

Dean Winchester stood motionless in the center of a whirlwind of golden light and flames that reached for the heavens. The wind and flames gently carded his short spiky hair, brushed against those ridiculously long lashes of his.

His eyes blazed yellow, and if a doctor had been able to take his pulse and temperature, if they'd tried to monitor his respiration and other vital signs at that moment he (or she) would have said that Dean Winchester was a dead man. There were no measureable signs of life. He had ceased to exist.

Dean stood easily in the gap between this reality and the next.

Coyote turned snarling towards the east, and Dean swung his attention that way.

There's a nest in that direction. Coyote stared fixedly in that direction, wild with grief and rage that flowed out of him into Dean and back again. Same kinda ones jumped us before.

Dean closed his eyes and imagined he felt Redd's slim fingers stroking lightly down the side of his face. He smiled a little at the memory of how Slymm always hung back, shy, uncertain of her place. He thought of Thomas and the way the skin around the older man's eyes crinkled when he laughed out loud. Bertha's serene smile as she watched them all patiently.

Bertha rocking and wailing as the skinwalker inside Thomas stole her husband's body.

Can't take any of it back. Can't take the pain away. But I can kill as many of these evil sonsabitches as I possibly can.

These weren't the ones that killed Redd. The Others took her soul, her essence, as a trophy. There was nothing of her out there to bring back. That was dark magic, something those spiny sonsabitches on the hilltop and the ones in that nest wouldn't know anything about. The only thing they knew how to do was rip and tear and eat.

And they wouldn't be doing that for too much longer.

000

Might be gettin' a little too old for this, John thought to himself. Climbing up the hillside was something he once would have done without much thought. Hell, he would have had Sam and Dean run an obstacle course up and down the damn thing after he'd run the course himself.

He realized he was out of shape. Been a while since he'd had a real body, flesh and blood to call his very own. Hunting might be a young person's game, but he was damned if he was going to leave his boys out here to face all this alone. John stepped up alongside Sam and they both stopped short.

The top of the hill was a slaughterhouse. These damn things were so ugly it hurt to look at them. They'd been gutted. They'd been shot. The air was heavy with the smell of gunpowder and slime, wet black blood and swampy smelling greenish gore.

They raised their shotguns and fell into a standard back-to-back pattern, each man covering the others' back, John stayed in front, Sam behind.

John could hear himself, seemed like a lifetime ago, giving Dean one of the very first Marine lectures he'd ever given the boy: Put 'em on the ground, son. Put 'em down hard and make sure they never get back up.

Dean had.

"Dad? You never did tell me how you found out about that knife." John went wide and Sam shadowed him. "I didn't think a blade could kill a demon."

"Heard about it while I was down under. Figured it was something that would come in handy later on, maybe." John scanned their surroundings and nodded, satisfied. It was clear. "Still don't know why she told me about it."

Sam frowned. "She? She who?"

"Name's Ruby." John shrugged. Blonde. Not bad to look at, of course, but she couldn't compare to Mary. Ruby always came around after Caliym had finished with him. She wiped the blood from his face, rearranged his twisted limbs, carefully tucked his intestines back into his belly before his skin knitted itself back together.

She ignored the jeers and laughter from the others. Apparently she held a low rank, half a step above the likes of him. John hadn't thought it was possible, but the blonde demoness looked almost sorrowful whenever she looked at him.

John knew the difference between a sorrowful look and one full of pity. He knew sorrow, but he hated pity,and the way Ruby looked at him was anything but that. "She was…different from the rest."

Sam wanted to hear more. Details, dude, details. John glanced over his shoulder and quirked an eyebrow at him.

Okay. Fine. The puzzled look Sam gave him told John that his youngest had filed that bit of information away for the future. He was going to bring that subject up again later, John was sure of it.

The light from the firestorm down below cast flickering shadows on John's face. He heard voices, strong, determined, and on another track, howling, full-throated, deep-chested, both somehow still unmistakenly Dean.

"Come on, Sammy. Let's go see your brother."

000

The brood prowled out in the open now, and the two-legged one with the green eyes didn't run.

He walked right towards them and he didn't run away. They were too hungry to back off, and it was the first time they'd ever tried hunting without the mother one. None of it mattered. Here was food. This one was meat.

The air around the two legger flared up hot and yellow, and they hung back fearfully. They'd had a few experiences with fire, and the mother one had always been there to put herself between them and the flames. She wasn't there now, so they backed up, mewling, grumbling.

A small four-legger walked out of the flames, all yellow-eyes and sharp white teeth, its sharp ears pricked forward. The spiny ones stared, and the small furry one stared right back.

Not as much meat as the two legger, but they were hungry, and this one would do. They lunged at him, shrieking, spines snapping and waving in the air like whips.

Dean and Coyote snarled, rumbling like thunder, and leaped forward to meet them.

The spiny one in the lead died first.

While they were under the mother one's protection the brood just hadn't encountered much in the world that could kill them, and there were such things. Bullets and knives, fire and lightning.

And when you got right down to it, there was good old fashioned tooth and claw.

000

Hannigan's Bar

Ten miles east of Two Dogs Homestead

"Aw, come on baby." He pushed her back against the alley wall, and it finally dawned on Carolyn that this was the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. She'd had one tequila shot too many, and from a distance he'd looked cute. Said his name was Snake. Said he only wanted to talk.

Yeah, right.

Now that he was right up in her face, all the tequila in the world couldn't keep that illusion alive. Carolyn looked up at him, tried to focus. Everything was swimming around, but she kept staring at his eyes. She couldn't look away. There was a buzzing sound between her ears. She couldn't think straight, and she couldn't look away.

"Let's go somewhere." He pressed against her and it felt like a damn hot water bottle or something. Too warm, too damp, too slick. This was wrong, all wrong

He flipped that dirty blond hair out of his eyes and grinned. She could see her reflection in those pitch black eyes of his. His grin stretched from ear to ear, and his teeth were blinding white. Too many teeth in that mouth, and Carolyn felt her stomach drop as he cocked his head to one side and ran his fingers down her shoulder and arm. The gesture was like a housewife fingering a side of beef in the meat department at the supermarket.

He leaned in and at first she thought he was going to kiss her, but then his tongue came out and kept on coming out, long, slimy and purplish black. He flicked the forked end at her, slimed her chin in one long slow stroke, and he laughed as she jerked back, tried to jam up against that wall so hard she wanted come out the other side. Anything to escape this.

"I won't hurt ya. Much," he smirked.

"You won't hurt her at all," someone growled smoothly, and Snake's eyes widened and he gave a startled squawk as he was grabbed from behind.

Carolyn caught a glimpse of broad shoulders and battered brown leather. Green eyes, short spiky dark blond hair.

This one had the face of an angel.

He face-planted Snake into the wall with one hand and turned to look at her. Brown Leather Jacket smiled slightly and just that slight upturn at the corners of his mouth made her weak in the knees. He nodded politely. "Evenin', ma'm."

Good Lord, that voice…

"You okay?" His smooth deep voice held a low note of concern.

"Uh…yeah. Yeah."

"Good." He nodded again.

Carolyn might have been a little out of it, but she glanced at those shoulders, those slim hips and well, well, this cowboy-hero was bow-legged.

Snake was pressed up against the wall, his boots dangling a good six inches off the ground. The Good Samaritan had him in a one handed grip, his right hand snug and tight underneath Snake's throat.

"What the hell, man? What the hell?"Snake squirmed as he tried to wriggle out. "I got this one. Go find your own meat!"

The newcomer's eyes narrowed dangerously. He tilted his head slightly to one side.

The light dawned. Finally. Snake became still. "Who…who are you?"

"You know who I am," the pretty one rumbled. His eyes blazed yellow, and the snake man cringed. "Tell you what, dude. I want you to do me a favor. I want you to tell all your friends about me."

"You…you can't do this!" Snake sounded like a child who just had his favorite toy taken away from him. "You're weak. They said you were weak…"

Green Eyes jerked Snake forward. They were face to face. Nose to nose.

"Do I look weak to you?" The green eyed one whispered.

Carolyn felt energy crackle and surge in the air all around the three of them. It prickled her skin, tingled the inside of her nose.

Sanke was tossed aside as casually as if he were a wad of paper. He landed a few feet away, and as he scrambled to his feet he glanced back at the two of them with wide fearful black eyes.

Carolyn could swear she saw a perfectly formed handprint underneath his throat. He'd been marked. He looked like a beaten dog as he slunk away, but she just couldn't bring herself to feel sorry for the bastard.

"I'll walk you to your car," her green-eyed angel drawled lazily as he stood beside her. "Be best if you went on home now. The freaks are out tonight. Not really safe for you t'be out here by yourself."

Carolyn's fingers shook as she pulled her car keys out of her pocket. If this man hadn't shown up she'd be dead. Or worse. She knew it in her soul. Suddenly the phrase "Fate worse than death" took on a whole new meaning.

Still, she managed to smile a little. It was weak, but it was enough, and he seemed to brighten a little when he saw her smile. "Me? What about you?"

He smiled a little wider. He had such bright green eyes. And freckles.

"I'm not the one you have to worry about."

000

The same scenario played out several more times that night, in different parts of the county. Different scenes, different would-be victims. And the same results, nearly every single time.

Word began to spread among the fuglies.

It would do for a start, but it was a big world out there.

000

They were waiting for something, and at first Dean didn't get it. They were whole once more, not torn or shredded. No more pain. No more blood or fear.

They stood around smiling at him, and it made him uneasy. He never could deal with a compliment, always got what Sam called that slightly wide-eyed "deer in the headlights" look whenever someone responded to him. To Dean. Not the bad boy façade. Not the bad-ass hunter. He was more comfortable when they thought he was a freak, and didn't that prove for once and for all how screwed up in the head he really was?

Healed, not fixed, remember?

The newly released dead stood around Dean in a loose circle. Men, women, and children, young and old.

If they come at me wanting a hug I am so outta here, Dean thought.

They stood there watching him, and Dean decided to take the lead. Someone had to make the first move.

You have to go, he told them, and he wasn't even sure he'd said it out loud. You have to cross over.

A pool of intense bright light flared into existence six feet above his head right then, soft and radiant, as good a special effect as Industrial Light and Magic could ever come up with. No heavenly choir, no angels singing, just the light slanting down to the ground. From Dean's angle it looked like a stairway.

Huh. A stairway to heaven, Dean thought mildly. Dude, could this be any more of a cliché?

He tried to ignore the way his gut tightened up.

Coyote huffed. He sat on the ground next to Dean's feet. He shook himself from head to toe and proceeded to gnaw at the fur on his left shoulder with a look that plainly said, "I've seen this before and damn, am I bored."

He tried to ignore the way his throat tightened up.

There were people in the light.

Sophie?

I've been waiting for you.

Benjamin, time to come home.

Several of them turned to Dean before they followed their loved ones home.

God bless you…

over, it's finally over…

thank you, oh God, thank you…

Dean nodded. He really felt he didn't deserve any gratitude; he was being polite. He stood there and watched them go, and he wondered if someone had been there waiting for his Mom.

He hoped so.

The spirits went up the stairs, surrounded by friends and family. They faded away into the light over his head.

When the time came for him to step over, finally, permanently, he hoped he could go alone. He didn't think he could stand to look up and see Sam and John standing in that bright light. He wouldn't mind seeing his Mom, Caleb, Jessica or Pastor Jim again.

Not John. Not Sammy. They deserved long full lives, and as long as they weren't around him there was a very good chance that was exactly what would happen.

They'd get over it. They'd get over him. They were both stronger than he was. He knew they were.

The light faded out as the wind died down around him. Dean smiled a little as he picked up on the scents. His mind was playing tricks on him, bringing up a memory that was keyed to his sense of smell.

He shrugged. They couldn't be here. They weren't.

Family. Blood scent. Silver and gunpowder, and that faint spicy aftershave that…

…that Dad wears…

"Dean?" a deep voice rumbled.

Coyote swung around, his ears flattened against his head. His tail bushed out and a growl rose in his throat. He pressed against Dean's right leg, and the Old Man trembled like a leaf.

Dean froze. Felt like the ground was slipping, sliding out from under his feet.

He turned around slowly, awkwardly, with none of his usual grace. He locked eyes with John, and his gaze slid past John to Sam. Dean's heart contracted almost painfully, once, twice. He couldn't take the look on Sam's face. Relief and hope, then confusion as Dean backed up. Moved away from them.

No. "Oh God, no…"

They'll kill everything and everyone you love, Old Man.

Dad and Sam were here. And if they were here, in this place, they would die. Or worse.

"Dean? Son. Please? Don't go." John's face was soft, his tone pleading. It wasn't an order, and that scared Dean even more. "We need to talk."

000

Well, it is a cliffie. And it isn't.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I had planned to post this all today as one chapter, but it is gynormous, so I broke it up into two sections. The second part's Chapter 51 (can you feel all the Winchester angst in the air, my brothers and sisters?) and then there's the epilogue, in which certain events are seen through the eyes of Bobby Singer.

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