Sorry for the wait, but here's next chapter! Again thank you for your comments! May them be positive or/and constructive critisim - I love ya and I'm glad you enjoy this! =)

As always, thanks to my faithful beta reader, Ravanne

G - Ghost Sickness

Set in late season 5

"Sammy, what's wrong?" Dean frowned at Sam. His little brother was sitting across of him in the relative empty diner, studying his fork.

"Imagine the damage this thing could do if someone fell on it," Sam mumbled, barely looking up at Dean.

"Uh..." Dean frowned even more, his brow furrowing in confusion at the morbid train of thought. "I suppose..?"

Sam swallowed before looking back at the fork, only to scream and throw it across the room as hard as he could.

"Sam! What the hell?" Dean yelled and jumped to his feet. He gave the cashier lady a quick reassuring smile before putting a hand on Sam's shoulder. He could feel Sam shivering beneath his touch.

"Those things are death traps. Let's get out of here," Sam whispered. He stood up hurriedly and was out the door before Dean could even open his mouth.

"Ooookay… I guess I'm taking this with me." Dean picked up his burger and a handful of napkins, hurrying after his idiot of a brother. Luckily Sam had only run to the car and was now standing a few feet away from the Impala, staring at it.

"Care to explain what the hell is going on with you?" Dean demanded.

Sam didn't answer immediately. Dean nudged his shoulder, trying to get a response. When Sam finally looked up, Dean could barely hide his irritation.

"Sorry. I just... I didn't wanna risk getting the fork in my eyes," Sam explained as if anything of what he was saying made sense.

"It's a fork, Sam. A fork. You eat with that thing..." Dean cut himself off when Sam suddenly gasped in horror.

"Imagine the damage it could do if you swallowed it." Sam covered his mouth with a hand as if to keep the fork in the diner from rushing out and plunging down his throat.

Dean just glared at him for a second before rolling his eyes. Sam had his moments of weirdness, but this really took the cake, and his patience was wearing thin.

"Just get in and shut up," He made his way to the other side of the car, unlocking the door. When he looked back at Sam, his brother had not moved an inch.

"Sam!" he yelled. Sam looked up at his big brother with the puppy dog gaze that Dean had always been helpless against.

"Can you open the door for me? I don't want to burn my hands on the hot black metal." Sam bit his bottom lip and scratched the back of his neck before pointing at the hot sun shining down at the car.

Dean groaned inwardly. This was going to be a long day.

_____

"Since when did you get afraid of forks and horses?" Dean wondered aloud as he drove back towards their motel. Sam sat tensely next to him, looking as if he were ready to jump out of his skin at any moment. They had been driving for a while when at red light a pair of mounted police officers passed the Impala. The sight of the horses had caused Sam to start swearing and curling in on himself, trying to making himself as small as possible.

"Those are some big freaking horses!" Sam used his thumb to point over his shoulder, but refused to look back at the animals.

This was too strange, even by Sam's strange standards. "Sam, are you on drugs?" Dean asked, dead serious and Sam's mouth dropped open.

"Of course not! Stupid." He mumbled the last comment, but didn't look up from where he was scratching his arm. Dean frowned at that and leaned over to grab his arm.

"Hey! Watch where you're driving!" Sam squeaked in terror, although Dean wasn't driving very fast and the road by the motel was pretty much deserted.

"Son of a bitch…" A flash of recognition hit Dean at the sight of the scratches on his brother's arm. "Ghost sickness! That's it!"

Dean's revelation made Sam furrow his brow in confusion.

"I can't have that. I haven't touched any dead people," Sam insisted.

"Don't you remember what happened to me? You don't' have to touch the body. You just need to touch one of the Buru Buru's victims." He saw Sam continue to scratch, but Dean swatted his hand away.

"Who have you been touching lately? Did you hit anyone? Shake anyone's hand? Slept with anyone?" Dean added, trying to joke and lighten the mood even though he was growing increasingly worried. Sam punched him in the shoulder and shook his head.

"Well, I hand shook a librarian yesterday. I visited a library in town," Sam answered after a moment's thought.

"That's it? Wow… life of the party, aren't you?" Dean parked the car near their room and jumped out, Sam following hot on his heels. "So, just how do we kill a Buru Buru?" Dean asked as they entered their room.

"Scare it to death. We have to do research first, Dean. We can't just go in and scare people to death without being sure," Sam carefully removed his jacket as if he was afraid it would hurt him if he was too quick.

"Okay. Sam, I need you to think good and hard now. Is there anyone else you've come in contact with?" Dean sighed deeply, trying to keep a rein on his temper when he realized he would have to do the research this time. Sam was sitting cross-legged on one of the bed, biting his nails.

"I knocked into someone yesterday… dunno who. Bumped into the cashier at the motel here, that librarian, slapped you over the back of your head, but I don't think you're the Huba Buba..." Sam muttered.

"Buru Buru, Sam. And gee, thanks. That's a huge help," Dean said sarcastically. When he looked up from the laptop, Sam had pulled his long legs up to his chest and locked his arms around them. He was hiding his face in his arms.

"So, what was the Buru Buru? You remember more of it then me I assume since I was in your situation last time." Dean looked sympathetically at Sam. It had been weird getting those unnatural fears over the most random things, but the worse of it was how it would end. Dean remembered the absolute terror he'd endured and he could only imagine what Sam was going through. The best thing he could do to help his brother was to keep him focused on the hunt.

"Uh. Buru Buru infects people who has the same personality or has done something similar to the person that killed it. The only way of killing it..."

"Is to scare it to death. I got that part. But, this came out of nowhere! When did you start getting scared of things?" Dean asked curiously. Sam's quiet while he thinks.

"Uh... Oh!" Sam suddenly sat up straight.

"I remember something!" he said eagerly. "The itching and scratching," He held his arm out as if Dean hadn't already seen the self-inflicted wounds,

"The librarian was scratching his arm too. I didn't think much of it, just thought it was a bad itch. But... he wasn't dead," Sam tilted his head a bit and looked curiously at his brother.

"Well, do the victims need to be dead to infect someone else? Anyway it's our best clue so far," Dean stood up and motioned for Sam to follow him. "We gotta find him as quickly as possible. You know how this will end if we don't stop it."

_____

"Look at this, Dean," Sam was sitting in the backseat of the Impala, convinced that he would go crashing through the windshield if he sat in the front. He held up a piece of paper so Dean could see the photo of an old woman in the newspaper.

"Read it, smart ass. I'm driving," Dean groaned. Sam pouted a bit at the sour tone, but did as he's told.

"'Evelyn Dukes was found dead in her apartment yesterday evening by her only daughter. Evelyn had reached 87 years of age, but still young at heart. At least that's what they thought as the police suspect the old woman died of a heart attack. However, the beloved woman was found with vicious and deep scratching wounds on her arms. They can only assume she did it herself as one of her nails was found deep inside one of the wounds',"

Sam read and looked rather nauseous.

"That sounds like ghost sickness," Dean confirmed quietly. Sam saw Dean look back at him in the rear-view mirror.

"At least you're good for something," he mumbled under his breath.

"What?" Sam looked up at that.

"At least you're good for something. You've been quite useless and pathetic for a long while now," Dean no longer looked at him, but at where he's driving.

"Wh-why?" Sam didn't really mean to ask 'why' because he could figure out that himself, but it just tumbled off his lips.

"Why?" Dean laughed bitterly. "Well let me see. You lied to me repeatedly, you chose a demon over your own brother, you had hot sizzling sex with the demon that fed you blood. The same bitch that made you a monster," Dean's voice was rising now. "And you told me all the dirty details I did NOT want to know!" he added. The last sentence would have been rather comical if it hadn't been for the situation.

Rationally Sam knew this had to be something to do with the ghost sickness. Why would Dean suddenly lash out at him when just minutes ago he was so eager to find the Buru Buru before it killed Sam? Still, Dean's harsh words cut Sam to the quick. He couldn't stop the tears from rolling down his face. This was the one thing he feared most; his big brother hating him. Dean certainly had plenty of reason to, but Sam didn't think that he could live if this was the truth. He noticed the car stopping and carefully looked up. Dean was turned around in the front seat and glaring at him.

"You made me say sorry to that bitch..."

Sam pressed his eyes shut when his brother started rambling again. All he wanted to do was shut it out, to make the hateful words go away. He felt Dean take hold of both side of his head, forcing him to look up.

"Sam! Snap out of it!" his brother was yelling, but his eyes were no longer vicious looking. Sam closed his eyes again, not sure if this worried-looking Dean was real.

"Sam, please! It's not real whatever you're seeing! Please listen!" Dean insisted, he tried not to yell and further frighten his brother. His fingers gently wiped away the tears from Sam's cheeks.

"When I was infected I thought I saw you with yellow eyes, but it wasn't real Sam. Neither is this. Whatever you heard me say or do, it's not real," Dean repeated it over and over. His voice desperate, but steady.

"You have to calm down, Sam." He relaxed a bit when Sam finally opened his eyes. Dean rested one hand against Sam's pulse point and breathed in relief when the frantic beating started too slowly but surely calm. His knees and back ached from bending over the front seat so he could reach Sam, but he didn't care. His main focus was on keeping Sam from having a heart attack.

"Hey, Sammy. Remember when we were younger… You were nine or something," Dean lifted his little brother's head a bit to get eye contact. "Remember that night we decided to dress up and try to scare dad? I dressed you up as a princess and you acted like a stubborn little bitch so I had to dress up like a princess too." Dean couldn't help a wistful smile growing on his face as Sam grimaced at the memory,

"Then when dad came home and we jumped out in front of him all dressed up in pink and baby blue dresses and lipstick we stole from the receptionist at the motel. Of course, we didn't scare him at all." Dean relaxed his grip on Sam's head, but kept his one hand on the side of Sam's neck. He needed to keep Sam focused on him.

"Yeah, but he looked mighty worried how his little hunters could even joke about dressing up as princesses," Sam remembered, grasping hold of Dean's hand and using it as an anchor. They just looked at each other for a few seconds before Dean broke into a smile again,

"He sure made us practice extra hard those following months," Dean chuckled, relieved to see his brother start to relax. The worst of this spell seemed to be over.

"Thank you," Sam muttered quietly.

"You're welcome, Sammy. I can dress you up later on again if you like." Dean teased.

"Dean!"

"I know… sorry! I mean it though. Whatever you saw was not real. This is!" Dean playfully ruffled Sam's hair, earning an outraged squeal from his brother.

_____

"Mr. Kingston?" Sam was following right behind Dean, but was the first to call out to the librarian. "Are you here?"

The library was silent and appeared to be deserted.

"We need to talk to you," Sam said loudly. There was no answer.

The two parted for a little to cover more ground quickly. Sam was very apprehensive about going off on his own, rushing through the dimly lit library as quickly as he could manage, looking for the librarian.

"Mr. Kingston?" he called out and received no answer. He was about to call out again when he found who he was looking for. Just not in the wished for state. He opened his mouth to scream, but a hand closed over it before he could. He struggled until he realized it was Dean.

"We're too late," Dean stated.

"I can see that! That's going to be me!" Sam shouted, growing increasingly frantic.

"Hey! It sure will be if you don't calm the hell down!" Dean warned. They carefully checked the corpse over and it seemed to have all the signs of being the result of ghost sickness. The body had deep scratch wounds on his forearms.

Dean pulled Sam away from the body and hustled him out the door. There wasn't anything they could do except get out before they were noticed and put in a call to the police.

_____

"Sammy? I'm back. You still alive?" Dean came through the motel door in a hurry. He found Sam huddled between the two beds and the TV lying broken on the ground, all but completely hidden beneath the cover he'd pulled off one of the beds. He barely responded to Dean.

Dean offered Sam a cup of coffee. Sam peeked out shook his head.

"I might choke on it or burn my insides," he explained vehemently. Dean sighed before sitting down on one of the beds, facing Sam.

"I think I found out what might be the special personality trait to all the victims." Dean bit his bottom lip. Sam was not going to like what Dean had discovered.

"I found out who our Huba Buba is," Sam said from where he's hiding his face in the bed cover he had pulled down onto the floor.

"Buru Buru," Dean corrected. This just wasn't like Sam at all. His brother was normally a walking encyclopedia or occult knowledge and for him to mess of the name of a creature they were hunting was very out of character for him. "You're usually good at these names."

"I'm a bit busy clawing myself up," Sam shot back, tightening his hold on his blanket. "The Buru Buru…. its some woman back in the 90s who slept with her sister's boyfriend. Her sister got pissed off and killed her,"

"I suppose that kind of fits what I found out too," Dean said, wishing otherwise. "The old woman from the paper, Evelyn… she had an abortion when she was younger. Without telling her husband. The librarian was secretly in love. With a man," Dean explained. "They were apparently planning to get married until our librarian had a change of heart and refused to admit he was gay when confronted."

Sam finally looked at Dean, poking his head out of his nest.

"They all betrayed a loved one," Dean muttered quietly, hating how the words sounded to his own ears.

Sam was very quiet for several painfully long seconds as he absorbed what Dean told him. "Just like I did," he whispered the pain in his voice unbearably apparent.

"Sam..."

"Dean, you can't argue that. That's why I'm infected!" Sam grabbed hold of Dean's leg and clutched it as if he was a little kid and looked up at his brother, tears streaming down his face. "I'm so sorry."

Dean blinked once and looked away, not able to meet the heartbreak in Sam's eyes.

"We've talked about this," Dean reminded him. "I know you're sorry. Why do you think I'm still around? I want to forgive you and work things out. We will," he reassured his little brother.

"Unless I'm dead," Sam added.

Dean couldn't bring himself to respond to that thought without screaming. He tried to return Sam's focus to the hunt. Sam's previous experience with a Buru Buru was badly needed, and remembering that he'd faced one of these ghosts and won might give Sam the strength to keep fighting.

"How on earth do we scare that kind of a Buru Buru to death? It wasn't like she was towed after a car till she died," Dean said, putting his elbow up on his knee so he could rest his head on his hand.

"Maybe we can just burn her bones. Luther was spread all over that road, but this girl was pretty much whole when she died," Sam suggested and Dean's face lit up. It couldn't be that easy.

"Did you find out where she was buried?" the youngest Winchester asked hopefully.

"Sam, I'm Dean Winchester. There's nothing I can't do, little brother," Dean stood up and held his hand out for Sam to take.

"Well…. you do have a hard time eating healthy," Sam snickered, but took the offered hand before Dean could change his mind and climbed to his feet.

"Let's finish this shit."

_____

"If the Buru Buru slept with her sister's boyfriend isn't she the one who betrayed a family member?" Sam thought out loud, holding the flashlight steady while Dean dug into the grave.

"You see, Sammy? We're not the only dysfunctional family in this world. They both betrayed each other then, but it was the one that murdered her sister that made her sister a Buru Buru," Dean's head hurt at the thought of one sibling being driven to kill the other. People had so many issues. Still, as strange as it sounded, it made Dean feel a little better. Although the problems between Sam and him were apocalyptic big, they still weren't alone in having hurt one another.

"Yahtzee!" Dean cheered when his shovel finally hit wood. It wouldn't be long now. He just had to crack open the coffin and a quick salt and burn later, their Buru Buru would be toast, literally. He raised the shovel to break into the casket when he heard a frantic "no" coming from Sam, his brother literally panting from fear. He looked up to see his brother trying to back away from a hidden enemy and Dean realized the only way he could help was to burn the bones and hope it was enough.

Sam shook his head frantically when the yellow eyed demon stepped out from behind some trees. "No. Azazel," Sam moaned. The demon was in the form of the hospital janitor he had been possessing when Dean had killed him.

"Howdy, Sam. I knew you were the right horse to bet on," the demon smiled cheerfully. "You actually let Lucifer out. I like you, Sammy, but I honestly hadn't thought your demon lover would be strong enough or have the brains enough to trick you. Seems I was wrong."

Sam just continued to back away, feeling his breath come short and his heart beat so hard it started to hurt.

"You're not real!" he forced out between gritted teeth and pressed his eyes shut. He knew that Azazel couldn't be there. Dean had shot him with the Colt and killed him. Sam knew that it had to be a hallucination created by the Buru Buru, but it seemed so real. He hoped desperately that Dean was hurrying up. He forced himself to open his eyes only to realize that Azazel now was almost nose to nose with him. He fell back in shock and clutched his chest.

"Doesn't really matter now does it?" Azazel winked at him. "What is real though is your funeral and this time you will stay dead."

"I'm not listening," Sam yelled, pressing his eyes shut again and grabbing at his chest. The pain was overwhelming. His heart felt like it was ready to burst out of his chest.

"That's because your heart is in your head, kiddo," Azazel said matter-of-factly.

"Oh come on," Dean fought with the lighter while keeping one eye on Sam. His brother was clearly in the grip of his irrational fear, fighting an unseen enemy. Dean knew he didn't have much longer before Sam's heart gave out on him. Finally the fire erupted from the lighter and he tossed it onto the bones and jumped out of the grave.

"Sam? Sam!" He clumsily landed on his knees on the grass beside his brother. Sam was pale, his breath hitching and eyes shut tightly.

"Please! It had to work," Dean begged and pressed his whole hand against the side of Sam's neck again. He felt his brother's pulse racing so quickly he almost had problems separating one beat from the next.

"Calm the hell down!" Dean gritted, but Sam didn't seem to hear him. His nerves were starting to fray and he had just one idea left.

"I'm sorry, Sam." He took hold of Sam's head and lifted his head a bit before knocking it back against the ground, knocking Sam out. The rigid body immediately went limp. Dean held his breath while feeling the pulse under his hand started to slow down. It didn't take long before Sam began to rouse.

"You okay, Sammy?" Dean asked, giving his brother a chance to regain his mental equilibrium.

"You did it? Did it work?" Sam asked, rubbing the back of his head. Dean sighed in relief when he felt Sam's pulse slow back to a more normal beat.

"I think so. You see anything? You feel an irrational fear for shovels? You feel like scratching your arms open?" Dean asked, leaning over to pick up the shovel. Sam frowned and sat up with some help from Dean.

"Not unless you plan to knock me out with it," he answered, glaring at his big brother. He rubbed at the back of his head. "Did you really need to hit me?"

"It was either that or having your heart explode in your chest," Dean said defensively. He didn't care if Sam was pissed off. His brother was alive and safe now, and that was all that mattered.

"Fine. Thanks." Sam said, hoping his thanks didn't sound too begrudged. He lifted his arm to check the scratches, but to his surprise they were gone.

"Look. I guess it worked," Sam hadn't expected the wounds to be healed, but he guessed killing off the source to the sickness healed everything. At least for those who managed to survive.

"Thank God. Then it is over. Just so you know, mine vanished also when you finished Luther," Dean explained and helped Sam up. They headed back towards the Impala after hastily refilling the grave

"So. Backseat or passenger seat?" Dean joked and nudged Sam in the side.

"Driver's seat?" Sam suggested with a snicker.

"Yeah? I don't think so. Another day, when I'm sure you're back to normal," Dean said, unlocking the car.

"Worth a try," Sam rubbed his eyes and for the first time noticed how tired he really was. "Can we just get back to the motel? I could sleep for a week."

Dean silently agreed and drove away from the graveyard.

Slightly more humor again this time. I hope it worked out for you and let me know what you think! =)

Oh and a random little shout out to Jared and Genevieve. To hell with all the haters, I wish them all the luck and love!! 3