Fourteen

The sky was still dark, dotted only by the presence of a few rare stars and emptied of the promise of a moon. In a motel room once shared between two brothers, a single table lamp illuminated the walls to smear shadows on the furniture and to shimmer dubiously over the glistening weapons. Fervently, Sam grabbed the deadliest weapons he knew he would be able to easily carry. The side of his face was beginning to darken with bruising from where he had been so violently hit, and his abdominal muscles were still sore enough to be noticed when he bent.

Earlier, Sam had come to the rationalization that fighting against the creatures would be futile in their numbers and strength against his own. Now, however, such rationales were merely wasted in the stark reality of what could occur if he did not fight. Dean could be gone to him forever and would join the ranks of murderous creatures that lacked judgment or morals.

Sam did not know exactly what he was planning, but a small voice of instinct whispered that he might not live to see another day. There would be lives taken, he was sure of this, and he could only hope that it would not be the human lives to crumble. And if humans, he decided, had to die, he could only wish that it wouldn't be Dean.

Slowly, he sank down on his bed where Dean's discarded leather jacket now lay. The guns next to Sam were not filled with rock salt or silver bullets. They were armed with bullets that could be used to kill a simple mortal man, and they now waited patiently while he wrapped his fists in the coat. He brought the leather to his nose and pressed his face deep against the material, inhaling the scent that he had associated with Dean even before he consciously recognized it.

It was difficult to remember a time when Dean had not owned a leather coat, even if it wasn't the same one Sam now held between sore fists. The jackets eventually came to symbolize Dean, Sam realized, in some twisted way. Even when Sam had left for college, he would occasionally see a person on a cooler Californian night, wearing a brown leather jacket, and he would think of Dean. By watching Dean run from the jacket he valued nearly as much as his car, he seemed to have been stripped of the last shred of humanity he contained.

Dean was dying, and this time, there was no faith healer to press curing hands against his forehead and summon the Grim Reaper across time and space for salvation. This time, the murder and the victim were all within Dean's head, and that was a place that Sam had been denied for years upon years. Sam wondered if it was even possible for him to have an impact on Dean at this point.

But, he rose to his feet nonetheless, laying the leather jacket back on the bed and picking up his assorted weapons. His plan was coarse and involved the dynamite he had contemplated using earlier. With the guns he would kill what creatures he could, but he knew that destroying the cave from the inside was incredibly dangerous. If nothing else, Sam would prove to his older brother that Dean hadn't lost him as he so wanted to believe. Sam was right there, and if it meant dying to prove such a point, he was more prepared for the idea than he thought he would have been.

Yet, even as he pulled the motel door closed behind him and gazed up at the starless sky, he didn't realize he had started to cry until he felt the cool wind pull his tears down his face.

- - - - -

Not far from where Sam moved slowly across the sand with the diligent pace of a man who knows he may be heading to his death, Dean was looking up at the sky with thoughts of how foolish his brother was going to be. In all of Sam's research, he had failed to notice the murders of family members and close friends in the families whose children had disappeared. He had never seen the death dates for these people, as that was not the information he was looking for, although it was the information that was going to send him to his grave.

Dean sighed, inhaling the desert's scent and thinking back on the last piece of knowledge he had been told. When the children were taken in, they were told that they had to kill in order to live. However, they could not kill just anybody. They had to kill the person who they felt was most responsible for their pain. Typically, this was an abusive parent, but it also could have been the molesting uncle or the preaching grandmother. With this person dispersed, the child's pain was also removed, and they were able to continue on to immortality with the knowledge that their pain was buried away forever.

Sharply, he closed his fingers into tight fists where razor-sharp talons curved from his fingertips. When he formed the fists, the claws made shallow cuts in the palm of his hand. He brought his bleeding hands to his face, where the blood twisted and snaked down the inside of his forearm in glistening rivulets. In his nocturnal vision, the blood glowed bright red against the cool blue of his enveloping scales.

Then, he bent his head and licked at the dripping wounds with his forked purple tongue, causing the taste to fill his senses and buzz through him with a feverish enthusiasm. He pressed his mouth against the gashes in his palm and sucked until the thick liquid leaked inside his mouth and ran down his throat.

When he paused to breathe, he could feel his own blood running down the corners of his mouth and ignored it to gaze upward again. Running his tongue along his teeth, he could feel how they had elongated into daggers with the capabilities of tearing living flesh and muscle. He thought back to all the times he had been reduced to crude human guns and knives to take life. No longer would he have to rely on such materialistic weapons; he knew that tonight was going to be a new start for him.

He looked down at his clawed hands again, pointing his fingers towards the sky as he stared as his palm where his blood was dried in crimson spider webs. How foolish had Sam been not to see the connection before it was too late, Dean thought morosely. Sam's belief resided in the idea that Dean would have to kill anyone to live, when in truth, Sam's blood alone could guarantee that Dean would see another sunrise. Finally, Dean raised one hand haphazardly and wiped away the blood on his mouth. Oh, Sammy, he thought. I want to gaze into your eyes as the light goes out on your life.

- - - - -

When Sam finally saw Dean what seemed like hours later, he barely recognized the man he used to know as his brother. The scales had completely covered Dean's arms and had crept up the sides of his face in blotched fingerprints. There were still small patches of visible skin on his cheeks and around his eyes, but the rest of his tanned skin was now covered in the blue scales. His fingers were elongated and thicker, each bearing a massive hooked claw at the end, and Dean's lips had lost some of their pink, human coloring. He moved fluidly and seemed to float above the sand.

"Sammy," he hissed, baring fangs that sent a primal shiver down Sam's spine. "So good of you to have come."

Sam raised the gun to the monster that was supposed to be his brother and bit down hard on his jaw. He tried to believe that was not blood he saw on Dean's teeth, and he focused his thoughts elsewhere. After all, this was not the way he wanted things to be, but Dean was clearly in his way, and Sam would at least have to immobilize Dean before being able to destroy the lizards at the cave.

However, Sam's thoughts were quickly jarred from his mind when Dean danced forward with one of his hands raised to strike Sam. Uncontrollably, Sam fired and would later berate himself for the gesture, but Dean spiraled out of the way, moving far too fast for Sam to hit. As Dean darted out of the way, he came close enough to his younger brother to slash Sam's forearm open in long, deep streaks.

Sam struggled not to scream and instead inhaled sharply, cursing the pain. Hot, blistering tears rose to his eyes as he glanced down at his arm before looking up and wheezing through clenched teeth to avoid the wail of pain bubbling up inside him. Through sweat-clumped hair, he saw Dean leering down at him.

"Smart college boy," Dean mocked. "Didn't see it coming, did you?"

"See what?" Sam breathed. Before Dean answered him, he again moved forward and dug his nails into the muscle directly below Sam's shoulder. This time, Sam did scream, and as Dean dug his claws further into Sam's skin, Sam crumbled to his knees under the pain. When Dean pulled his nails from the punctures he had made, he lifted his claws to his lips and licked the blood off the ends. From Sam's arm, the blood flowed in fervent gushes, soaking the sleeve of Sam's t-shirt and staining his skin

As Sam knelt on the ground with his head bent and trying to collect his breath, Dean walked to him again. Between two massive, scaled fingers, he grabbed Sam's face to crane his younger brother's head upward to look at him. When he pressed his claws to Sam's cheeks, shallow new cuts were sliced into Sam's skin.

"It was the ones who caused the pain that the kids had to kill in order to live." As he talked, he pressed his nails deeper, causing Sam to writhe and grimace. "Well, little brother, guess who I have to kill to live? You'll find this rather funny, I'm sure. Quite the laugh."

"Go to hell," Sam growled.

"Not if you get there first," Dean chuckled, and his eyes glinted maliciously in the slowly arriving sun that was still gray in its new rising.

Sam couldn't bring himself to raise the gun against his brother. Monster or not, he could not lift the gun and shoot Dean point blank in the forehead, even if it meant ending his own pain.

"You're not my brother."

"Then prove it. Shoot me, you arrogant little bastard."

Abruptly, Dean released his hold on Sam, causing Sam to topple forward on his hands and knees in the sand. "I'm going to kill you now. Slow. Painful. Like you did to me when you left for California. I want to look at you when you die."

"I didn't leave—" Sam began, but he was harshly cut off when Dean slapped him across the face. Unlike the previous time when Dean had hit Sam in the motel room and left him with a simplistic bruise, Dean's claws now ripped long, flayed lines into Sam's raw flesh.

"You left!" Dean yelled. "Don't you ever say you didn't! You liar!"

Finally, swallowing the lump of moralistic hesitation in his throat, Sam pushed himself to his feet and fired. Dean managed to dart out of the initial bullet's way, but when Sam fired again, there was a sharp explosion of splattering red. When Dean stopped moving, Sam was able to see the bullet hole oozing fresh blood on Dean's leg through the ripped denim.

Before Dean could retaliate, he lifted his head, and Sam followed the distracted gaze of his brother. Against the ever-rising sun, two large creatures flew in a pair of black shadows. Before they even landed, Dean screamed madly, "No! I've got him! He is mine!"

When they finally landed and stood before the brothers, Sam was able to see that they were the two superiors he had seen Dean talking with not so long ago. As they settled on the ground, their powerful wings began to fold behind them, and they moved swiftly over the sand in quickening footsteps.

"You have had your time. We will not die," the male said.

"No! Give me a little longer! I will take him!"

"No," the female responded. "We will take you both."

With all three otherwise engaged, Sam finally saw his escape from the chaos, and he shot.

There was a piercing scream, and a body collapsed to the ground with a convulsive shake of blood and gray matter.

The male of the species fell to the ground, with a round black hole through his forehead, and his eyes still wide opened. Even before his limp form landed on the sand, his scales were already beginning to peel away in thick flakes. By the time he rested on the sand long enough for the blood to seep from the back of his head, his scales were on the ground around him, and he looked up through human eyes at the brightening sky.

Frantically, the female threw herself on top of the human body of her partner and wailed with her scaled face turned up to the growing illumination. Her words were unintelligent cries of pain while she raised her fists to the sky.

In complete silence, Dean stared with wide, panicked eyes. Frozen in place, he watched the two creatures, who he had assumed to be utterly immortal, crumble.

Keeping an eye on Dean, Sam moved forward to the female and leveled the gun at her. The gun wavered in his grasp, but when it clicked into place, she turned her attention to him. Through watery, yellowed eyes, she gazed up at him, her wails quieted, and then she looked to Dean, who stood off to the side of his brother.

"You never really needed us, did you?" she whispered to Dean. In the distance, the light grew stronger, and slowly, her scales began to fall off her body, revealing pale, white skin. She ignored her demise, and continued in a voice that became increasingly feminine, "He has always kept you in his life as much as you have kept him. Remember that. You've never been as alone as you thought, nor will you ever be."

Even before Sam could pull the trigger, she threw her head back with a blasting shriek as the sun rose fully on the horizon. She was instantly transformed into an inferno of blazing white light, causing Sam to shield his eyes from the sight, even as his ears rang with the high-pitched screech of her voice.

Next to him, Dean began to stagger forward as if drunk, before collapsing in a heap on the ground where he convulsed rapidly. Sam screamed his brother's name and threw himself forward towards Dean's unconscious figure. A violent tremor passed across the sand like a massive earthquake. Before Sam lost consciousness, he pressed his face to Dean's chest and whispered in a hitching gasp, "No. You can't leave now."

As Sam's world darkened and swirled in black, the sun burst into a furious fire and brought with it the blessing of a new morning at long last.