They fell into a rhythm then. A pattern of seeking and finding cases. A cycle of saving people, and hunting the things that hunted them. It seemed that they were two human brothers against a world of night. Yet, their father didn't see it that way. He would refuse to see it that way until Sam was in the cold, hard ground. For all the fangs they sent heads rolling, for all the werewolves, for all the demons they sent back to Hell. The learning curves were endless for them, as two solid months went by, hunting their way down Yellow Eyes' foodchain, looking for the demon in the congregation of the damned. It was harder than hunting needles among the needles, harsh as a harvest of thorns.
Their father never faltered in his pursuits. For all of the creatures they hunted, he was hunting them. It began to wear on them, a stone grinding against meal. Either the stone would turn to sand, or the meal to powder, but soon someone would disentigrate under the weight and the press of this trial.
The day of disintegration came like a bolt out of the night. Their world fell apart softly, a start streaming as it fell to earth and blazes.
It happened when they were running through a smokey field. A corn field sat on fire by the spirit who lived there. He rose tall and brooding at the end, where the family graveyard lay broken and despairing. Just as he died from the wrought-iron rounds Dean had fired into him, he burst into flame. In the wake of unholy fire, Sam and Dean had been running these people to safety, when they found another hunter at the end of the same field.
Dean looked up into the eyes of his father. For the first time, he felt his heart drop to his feet.
"You!" Dean gasped, and it had the tinge of acid.
"I really wish you hadn't come here, Dean..."John's face was hard. He lowered his rifle when he saw the wild, crazy eyes of the woman Dean had just pulled free of the cornfield. All of them had been there, having a family barnraising. Whatever country communities did, in a world that was human.
The blazes rolled over the field, charring the path.
"He'll take you to safety..."Dean cut John a loathsome look, demanding that he put the people first, before he even thought about what he meant to do next. John nodded to the lady. But then, she twisted around in Dean's arms.
"My baby!" She shrieked. John and Dean exchanged a brief glance. Another mother, another fire, another baby doomed. They had seen this movie, and its credits reel.
Out of the black, out of a fireburst. Running for two lives. Sam burst straight through a blazing cluster of stalks, holding the head of a toddler flush to his shoulder. He looked back as a tree groaned and collapsed under the weight of this ruin, ashes from the inside out, a cigar to the spirit's breath and savor.
"Jackson! Jackson!" The woman pushed free of Dean running to Sam. Sam hit his knees, slid to a stop. He passed the baby to his mothers arms. The circle of his life closed its loop. Sam Winchester, a boy torn away from his mother by fire, had risen from fire and placed another boy in his mother's grasp.
Dean felt the lump in his throat, as the book closed for him. He also felt John freeze beside him, grow stiff. It was John, hesitating for the reason he'd come.
Sam looked up from where he knelt on the ground. He was charred, and breathless. When he saw his Dad, he burst into tears. It was the first time he'd cried for this. The first time he'd seen him up close since he'd been disowned.
"Don't you move!" Dean gasped, and drew his pistol. John looked at Dean, emotionless, as Dean drew a bead on him and their family fell at last into oblivion.
"Dean, no..." Sam begged, putting his hands together, piety before a medieval execution.
"You won't touch him. You won't. I won't let you..." Dean bit his lip. His fathers eyes were sad. His hands were on his rifle. He looked at Sam.
"Look, no, this...I don't want this...Please? Just don't hurt, Dean. He doesn't deserve it." Sam stood up, slowly, hands raised. Dean saw on his face a look that he had never wanted to see. His eyes said that he was ready to die.
"Neither do you, Sam!" Dean snapped, feeling the fire curl in his belly. John looked at Dean who kept the pistol trained on him, as he inched in front of Sam.
"Please, don't shoot...Don't. Dean, it's okay." Sam begged. He then, with one swift step, reached and pushed Dean behind his back. Dean lowered his pistol, reluctant to move afraid John would fire on Sam before he could get in the way.
"I'll go with you. I just have one thing to ask. Please...Don't...Don't make Dean watch." Sam swallowed his tears, eerily calm.
John drew a sputtering breath. His lip curled in anger.
"I don't think it's as easy as all of that, is it? What...the hell...are you?" John's nostrils flared. Dean felt his blood freeze. He'd never seen that kind of rage or hate on his father's face, and he had seen him tango with demons. Sam's breath caught.
"I don't know!" He held up his hands.
"I swear to God, even I don't know!" His hands folded together in prayer.
"Look, I get it...I know what you've got to do. But don't make Dean watch..."
"You son of a bitch...It wasn't enough to kill my Sammy?"John shook his head.
"You've got my son so convinced...so convinced that you are human still. That you're helping him hunt your own kind?!" John threw down his rifle, and drew out a bottle of holy water. He threw the whole thing over Sam. Sam didn't flinch or move. He just stood drenched in water, hair streaming in his eyes.
"I helped Dean save people...hunt things...because I wanted to believe I could still be human..."The holy water and the tears mingled in the ashes that streamed down Sam's face. John stared, dumbfounded, for the first time hesitating.
A team of hunters came bursting out of the woods, whooping, hollering, howling. They had been watching this hunt, but they had let Sam and Dean take it, just so they could spring the trap, catch them in the act of the crime of salvation.
"There he is! There's our little yellow-eyed SOB, ey, Sammy!" A tall, dark guy that they recognized from the El Camino howled.
"Gordon, wait..."John gasped, tilting his head.
"Wait for what? We've got him! If you can't do it, let me." Gordon grinned from ear to ear.
"You so much as breathe his direction, I'll cut your head off with your goddamn femur." Dean growled, stepping in front of Sam.
"Oh, the other one." Gordon looked Dean up and down.
"Gordon, he didn't react to holy water...This thing...It's not gonna play by the same rules. We can't just kill him outright. We might not actually be able to..."John's voice was robotic.
"Did you think it's a possibility holy water didn't work because Sam is HUMAN?!" Dean howled. Sam sputtered, crying harder now.
"I think his little pity party here has got you snowed in deeper than the foot of the Andes, man." Gordon snickered.
Dean turned to his little brother, blood shooting to his nostrils.
"Sam, run."
"What? No!" Sam shook his head. Dean reached into his pocket and pulled out a grenade.
"What the hell!" Sam's eyes crossed.
"Get out of here!" Dean turned to face the others.
"This is fair, right? You gotta go through me first to get to him. So, you make a move on him before he is clean out of sight, and I pull the pin on this. We all go up. Or, you give him a head start." Dean grinned.
John shook his head.
"Dean...Your brother is already dead. I'm sorry, but you were there. You were there the night of the Blood Baptism." John drew a heavy breath.
"Yeah, that's right...I was there. Where the hell were you?!"Dean tossed his head, snarling.
The words hung in the air lingering on the smoke.
"That's right, nowhere to be found, like usual. I'm gonna say this once. You breathe a puff of air in his direction, and I will blow you all to kingdom come." Dean played with the pin, feeling his stomach drop realizing who he was talking to. He loved his Dad profoundly, but God help him he loved his little brother even more.
"Dean..." Sam fiercely scrubbed his sleeve over his drenched face.
"Same goes for you, Sam. Either you take off running in the opposite direction, or I blow us all to pieces. Rather us get taken out in one clean painless swoop than let them do some backwater experiments on you..."Dean growled.
Sam's eyes went wide with fear at the thought that Dean would kill himself to save him. As it hit home that he was serious, Sam took off running. He was running for Dean's life, having given up on his a long time ago.
"That's far enough, don't you think? Satan Jr. is a regular Sprinter..."Gordon purred.
"Mm, I'd say it was a fair start, if there was anything about this that was fair. Which is why I cheated." Dean snickered.
"Dean, don't...There's no reason for you to get hurt." John begged.
Dean pulled the pin anyway.
"You dumbasses honestly think I would bring a live grenade somewhere my little brother could get hurt by it? It's a smoke bomb, you stupid bitches. Later." Dean laughed. He was already completely impervious to the smoke from the hours in this field, saving people from the onslaught of the weird corn demon he had just wasted.
Dean bolted for the treeline, following a zigzag pattern he knew Sam would take to get back to the car. Sam would not have the presentness of mind to drive away, and when he did bring it back to earth, he would go right back to the scene, trying to get Dean.
Dean found Sam collapsed against the Impala's trunk, sobbing as he'd tried to open it for more weapons, to get ready and go back for Dean.
"How could you?! How could you do that, you bastard!" Sam jumped on Dean, and grabbed his coat hard enough to rip it, as he pulled him close to his face, screaming at him.
"Sammy, it was a trick, calm down..."Dean held Sam's shoulder as the boy trembled like he would collapse to his knees.
"What?" Sam's eyes were bloodshot and his face had round black and blue patches where soot and bruises blended into one blur.
"Sammy, it was a smoke grenade. Like the kind you get at a firecracker stand but spiked by yours truly. I just put it in a real grenade shell..."Dean frowned as Sam bowed over to his chest, sobbing.
"I wouldn't do that to you, buddy...Come on, now, we've gotta git. It won't take long for them to stop choking on that stuff, and then they'll be back." Dean hauled Sam to the car and shoved him into the cab in a little sobbing ball. He then peeled out of there, daring to look back only once to see if the people they had saved were safe from his Dad and his team.
The people they had saved stood watching them leave, screaming their names, calling out their thanks from a distance wondering why they had to leave. Chaos descended on the scene as firefighters and police officers came to see what had caused the cornfield fire.
They were an hour away from the scene and Sam still lay bunched more in the floorboards than in the seat in a sobbing, soaked, wretched mess.
Dean reached down and hauled him by his coat into the passenger seat like a dog lifts a pup by its scruff.
"Put your seatbelt on..."He whispered, running his hand under his chin.
"What the hell does that matter, Dean?! It's not like I'm human or anything! Hell, I'd probably light the road on fire or something with my psychic abilities. It'd be like something outta X-Men, right?" Sam was quaking he trembled so hard.
"Sammy...put your seatbelt on...Okay? It matters to me..." Dean nodded at it again. Sam stared at him, slack jawed.
Dean, with an annoyed huff, pulled over on the side of the road. He got out, tore the door open.
"What, am I five?!" Sam spat.
"You're kinda acting like it." Dean rolled his eyes as Sam went into a tirade.
"You should have let them take me out, dammit, Dean! This weirdo psychic stuff is immune to holy water! Who knows what that means?" Sam let out a croaking sob as Dean strapped his seatbelt on.
Dean took his face by gripping his hair from the back.
"As far as I'm concerned, it means you're human." Dean bit his lip.
"Dean..."
Dean shook his head.
"No, we're not arguing about it. If you ever say anything like what you just said again, I will break your nose. I swear to God, I will break your fricken nose, you hear me?" Dean gasped back his own urge to cry as Sam's eyes filled up with tears again.
Dean loosened his grip on Sam's hair and brought his other hand around, cupping his head in both palms. He kissed him on his forehead, for a lingering moment, and then laid him back against the seat.
Sam was speechless as they drove off into the night again.