A/N: If you survived last chapter with no ill effects, then this one will be a cakewalk. To everyone who is reviewing. Thank you so very much. I am working to catch up on reviews, but given that the site is still not sending them on you won't be receiving them yet anyway. Please know that every review means a lot, and is greatly appreciated!

GUNSLINGER (Chapter Six)

Five days. It had been five days. It felt like five long hard miserable years, with no end in sight. As he looked at his brother, at the haggard creases, the stubble that came closer to a beard, and the charcoal smudges under his eyes, he saw the suffering reflected back at him.

"You look like shit," Sam said huskily. He winced at the tight pull across his cheek, the draw of newly stitched flesh beneath heavy gauze. It made him sick just thinking about it. So he didn't, he watched his brother instead.

"I'm fine. Bruised kidneys and a broken wrist can't keep me down."

Sam considered that, thought about correcting his brother and adding the head injury, the extensive bruising, the lacerated kidney – and the emergency surgery to save Dean's life when stubbornness had seen him refuse treatment – but he couldn't muster the energy.

"How are you doing?" Dean said.

Sam's mouth pulled down and he lowered his gaze. Everything hurt. His throat, arm, every inch of his body bore bruises and he couldn't move an inch without pain searing through his abdomen. The drugs made him nauseous and tired, and his brain hurt – emotions, a roller coaster of anxiety, sadness, anger. He listlessly picked at the cotton blanket with one hand.

"Not so good, huh?" Dean leaned across and grabbed the remote for the television. "How about some daytime television to really hammer home the torment."

Sam half smiled at that and shrugged one shoulder. He eyed his brother, a multitude of questions barreling around in his head. None surfaced, he just let them whiz around and around, bashing against his skull until he felt like hurling.

The doctor had explained his condition in gruesome, technical detail, and the rawness of it convinced him that he should have died. The promise of a full recovery held a ring of bitter falseness. He had been tortured in retribution for the deaths of three people, the torment of the souls of two others. His death would have been fair penance. Escaping that seemed unjust: an upset to the natural order of things. And Sam waited for the world to right itself. For evil to come collecting its dues: seeking suffering, blood… his soul. And it would. Sam knew it would. It was just a matter of time.

The television switched on, turned up too loud – a sudden burst of gunfire – and Sam flinched, gasping at the sudden pain. He shut his eyes and pressed his head back against the pillow, sucking breath between his teeth.

"Damn thing," Dean muttered, his voice quavering. The sound shut off a moment later. "What moron has the freakin' television volume up that high?"

"You," Sam said. He cracked his eyes open and tried valiantly to look less like animated road-kill. Dean's fearful expression warned him that he wasn't doing such a great job.

"Where's Brad?" he ventured a moment later.

"Don't know. Don't care." Dean's voice took on a crisp edge. "The son of a bitch has shut down his website, that's all I care about."

Sam raised an eyebrow in question.

"Nurse Sondra, the red-head, let me use her computer. He's closed down the site, put up a notice to say that all visitors will be turned away." Dean shifted on the seat, leaning forward, his broken wrist resting on one thigh. His expression grew taut for a moment, a flash of pain, then the stoic mask shifted into place and Dean sneered. "It's about the only vaguely honorable thing the bastard has done."

Sam dropped his gaze, his good hand coming up to his throat. It was an instinctual gesture, and his fingers caressed the gauze that covered the wound just below his Adam's apple. He didn't remember Dean cutting into his throat so he could breathe. Couldn't imagine having to do that. But he did remember the intubation: a tube connected to a port in his neck because his throat was so badly swollen and bruised that they couldn't get a tube down it. He had been terrified that he might stay that way, be fitted with a prosthesis and left to talk through a synthesized voice box. But the swelling had gone down, and the tube came out, leaving a hole and the promise of a knotted little scar. Another to add to the growing collection.

He lifted his gaze to the window, to the crisp sunlight, the cotton clouds, the rooftops beyond the hospital grounds. Exhaustion gnawed at his muscles, made it hard to breathe. Oddly enough, he craved the ventilator, the work it had done for him, once he had gotten used to the pattern and the terror of having no voice, he had just laid there in a semi-drugged stupor, the machine breathing for him.

"It'll get easier as you regain your strength."

He glanced at his brother, then looked away again. Would it get easier? Would any of it?

"None of it was your fault. You know that, right?"

He nodded without thought, his focus locked on the view outside. He felt Dean watching him, waiting for something more solid, more convincing.

"They're at peace now, aren't they?" Sam eventually said, his voice thick and unsure.

"Who?"

"Conrad and Tom. They're not suffering anymore?"

Dean clenched his jaw. "I don't much care."

"I do. Bevins, he… what he did, it was—"

"Torture."

Sam nodded and chewed on his lower lip. He swallowed, grimacing.

"They tortured you, Sam. Eye for an eye, it was barbaric. There's no justification for that."

"You broke Brad's nose. As payback."

Dean studied him, his eyes narrowed. "You need to rest. You look ready to pass out."

He felt it too, but he pinched his hand into a fist and shook his head. "Was it… did they pick me because…"

"It had nothing to do with your abilities." Dean leaned in closer, his hand folded around Sam's wrist at the pulse point. The machine beside the bed ratcheted out Sam's vitals in little blips, lines and flashing numbers. Any dramatic change would bring nurses running, yet Dean still checked his pulse the old fashioned way.

Sam closed his eyes, turned his head away, suddenly overcome with emotion. Tears burned his eyes and he tugged his wrist free and rested it across his abdomen. The additional weight hurt, but he figured Dean wouldn't reach for him there.

And Dean didn't. He withdrew, but didn't leave. And neither did he speak. Sam was thankful for that, and soon he drifted, losing himself to the dulled pain.

Sleep must have come soon after, because he woke to darkness. Disoriented, he blinked and tried to make sense of the lack of light. It shouldn't be entirely dark like this. Yet it was. Dark. Too dark.

And cold. Icily so.

Someone was with him. Close. Breathing heavily. Sam startled upright, expecting pain, but feeling very little. He rolled out of the bed, padded across to the door and rested his hand on the handle. Cold wafted over his shoulders, raising the hairs on the back of his neck.

"Who's there?" He tried the door. Found it locked from the outside.

No way out.

"Ever seen a chicken with it's head cut off?"

Conrad. He'd recognize that voice anywhere. The grating harshness of it, the awful, dead-flat timbre. Sam swung around, breathing hard. A silhouette filled the window, the tall, broad form of a man. Sam flattened his back against the door, the handle grasped in one sweaty hand.

He had to be dreaming. It had to be a dream. Pain erupted in his leg and he grunted, reaching for it, his fumbling fingers coming in contact with a knife embedded in the meat of his right thigh.

"You got away once, you won't again."

Frigid air wrapped around Sam, shouldered him to the floor and pinned him there. The knife twisted in his thigh, ripping a scream from his throat. Loud and hoarse, real. Too real.

Then the cold fled, light burned and voices rushed in, around him, washing heat and cold through his body. Sam lay amongst it, his teeth chattering, his eyes restlessly shifting. Blood leaked between the fingers of his left hand in hot, gushing spurts.

"He's severed the femoral. Get a gurney in here."

Pressure bore down on the wound and Sam arched against it, a strangled cry torn from him.

"What happened? Oh no! Who did this?"

Sam stared dully at Doctor Parkens' shiny red shoes, pointy heels, dainty feet. She lisped her distress, coming down to his height to touch at his face. "Stay with us, Sam. We'll get you fixed up."

"Dean?"

"Yes, I know. We'll tell your brother. It'll be okay."

"Tell him. Conrad not… gone," Sam said as consciousness rapidly decayed in chunks. Then he was gone, the doctor's frantic voice snatched away.

Sam woke to a dark room. The only illumination from outside, in the hallway. He startled upright, grunting and falling back as pain weakened him.

"Sam, you're okay. It's okay."

"Dean?"

"Breathe, slow and easy."

Sam's breath hitched, the memories all too real, the pain too intense. He reached for his brother, caught Dean's uninjured hand and clutched it tight. Words lay trapped in his chest, the emotions too brittle.

"Can you sit up?"

"No."

"You have to." Dean glanced toward the door. "We're going on a little excursion."

"Conrad?"

"Yeah, it's time to burn the bastard."

Sam bit his lip, shaking now. "It wasn't a dream?"

"No." Dean pushed the sheets back, and exposed a bandage wrapped around Sam's upper right thigh. Blood had stained some of it. Dark rust patches against the white. Pain, memory and real, rushed in and Sam's stomach heaved.

He threw up over the edge of the bed, splattering liquid over the sheets and floor. Dean fell quiet, his hand warm against Sam's back. When it was over, Sam slumped against his brother, his eyes closed, his chin on Dean's shoulder.

"I can't leave you here," Dean said, the words rumbling through his chest. "They got you once, and they'll be back."

"Just… Conrad." Sam opened his eyes. The room tipped and wavered. Drugs, blood loss, or pain. He wasn't sure, didn't really understand any of it.

"I can't protect you here and I can't leave you."

"You're… hurt too."

"I'm fine."

It was a lie, but Sam had no energy to argue. He shakily pushed away from Dean, tugged the IV lines from the ports in his hand and raised his head. "What's… the plan?"

Dean looked sick, petrified and anguished. He raked his gaze up and down, taking in Sam's obviously less than healthy appearance. Sam forced a grin. "Looks… worse….." He bit his lip, closing his eyes against another wave of nausea.

Who the hell was he kidding?

"When this is over, you'll be coming right back here." Dean's voice shook, breaking on the last syllables. "You just have to stay in the Impala. You'll be fine, and it'll all be over before you know it.

It was never fine. And it would never be over.

Sam clutched at Dean's back as the older man hefted him from the bed and settled him into a wheelchair. The movement rattled him, drove pain through his abdomen and thigh and he shuddered, his muscles cramping against the shock of it. He felt Dean beside him, felt him touching at his face, but Sam couldn't respond, couldn't make sense of what his brother was saying. It sounded like Dean might be crying.

Dean didn't cry. Not unless it was really bad. But then, this was bad. Dead guys hunting them down. Didn't get much worse than that really.

Dean tucked a blanket around him, gentle around his thigh, even more gently around his stomach. Sam tried to help, but Dean batted him away.

"Just keep breathing, Sammy." He looked up and smiled, a forced, sad expression that aged him. "I'll make this right."

As Dean wheeled him through the hospital, smiled disarmingly at nurses and nodded authoritatively at doctors, Sam struggled just to remain upright. His abdominal muscles had been pounded – shredded – and breathing hurt, let alone sitting upright in a moving chair. By the time they had reached the car, Sam had almost clear bitten through his lip to keep from sobbing.

Getting into the car was a whole new form of torture that Sam never, ever, ever wanted to repeat. Except he would have to. Because, unless he planned to spend the next week in the car, at some point he would have to get out of it.

Maybe they could drug him for that. He pondered that as he watched Dean push the wheelchair to the side, nosed in behind a tree, hidden from view. Ready for next time. Great. Just great.

Dean hurried around the side of the car and slid into the driver's seat. Sam closed his eyes, wheezing shallow inhalations between clenched teeth.

"Sam."

Sam groaned and longed for unconsciousness, sedation – anything but this pain.

"This will help."

Something warm settled in his lap and Sam touched at it, fumbling to try to make sense of what it was.

"Heat pack. Hold it like this." Sam's fingers were gently pried apart, then closed around the radiant warmth. "Put it against your chest, you need to keep your core body temp up. There's another one for under each arm. Keep them under the blankets."

"Sounds… good." His teeth were chattering and it seemed as though a meat axe had cleaved through his thigh, right to the bone, and now was slowly being sawn back and forth across the nerves. His face, fractured arm and torso ached with less intensity, but no less determination.

If Conrad didn't kill him, shock and pain sure as hell would.

Then they were moving, easing through the hospital car park and out into the street. Dean set the heaters up high, blasting heat into the cab as night flashed by outside. Sam trembled, his teeth clamped tight against the pain, the cold, the hell of it all. Gradually the heat soothed him, loosened his muscles and made him soggy limbed. His head rested against the window, his eyes closed, soothed by the throbbing engine and gentle vibration. He must have fallen asleep, because he woke to near silence, just the sound of breathing.

"Dean?" Panic laced his voice, made him twist in the seat as he searched the darkness for his brother.

"Shh, I'm here."

Sam blinked, trying to see, relaxing as he took in his brother's form in the driver's seat.

"We're at the cemetery, two miles from the ghost town," Dean said.

"It's dark."

"Yeah." Dean shifted in the seat, a rustle of denim against leather. "It'll be light enough soon. You warm enough?"

"Hmm."

Dean hesitated, then leaned across and touched at the side of Sam's neck. "Your heart-rate's up. Try to relax."

"Kinda… hard."

"Yeah. True. But try anyway."

Light filtered over the cab and touched a ghostly hand to the dash.

"It's Brad," Dean said before Sam could ask. "I can't dig by myself and that bastard owes us."

Sam clutched at the blankets and hugged them closer. "Can you… trust him?"

"Have to."

"But…."

"I smashed the watch. Broke the connection that held him to the spirits." Dean shrugged and watched the headlights approach. "Having him help us is the lesser of two evils really."

The SUV pulled in beside them, kicking up dust in a swirled haze. The headlights flicked off and blackness reigned until Sam's eyes adjusted to the moonlight. Two men hopped from the cab. Brad, and another man. A stranger. For a moment Sam thought it was Conrad, and he tensed, stifling a gasp as pain ripped through his body.

Dean glanced at him, then looked away. He rolled down the window.

"You know which one is the right grave?"

"It's over by the south side. Buried beside his family," Brad said.

"You got the pocket watches?"

"Yeah."

"Go to the grave, I'll bring the car around."

"You can't drive closer, there's no track and you'll get bogged in the sand."

Sam listened, blinking heavily. He saw Dean turn to him. "Then you two dig, I'll stay with Sam."

Brad leaned down and peered into the car. He withdrew almost immediately and his tone changed, grew deeper, pained even. "Damn, when will this end?"

"When that son of a bitch is properly dead," Dean said. He wound up the window and shoved open the car door and a blast of cold air made Sam turn his face away. The door slammed shut, and Sam was alone. His ears rang in the silence. Outside the car, Dean walked to the trunk, opened it and retrieved something. The other two men did the same.

Sam clutched at the blankets and turned so he could see Dean through the windows. The men met at the front of the SUV, their voices muted by the metal and glass. With the engine off, heat dissipated quickly and Sam eyed the heating vents with longing. The heat packs against his chest and sides helped immeasurably, but his feet and legs felt the chill, and the wound on his face ached.

Gauze covered a large portion of the left side of his face. The broken flesh stitched tight, the bone underneath set and healing. It would scar, but minimally, so the surgeon had said. A fine long line. He wondered how that could be so. The bar had cleaved his cheek open, or at least it felt like it had. He hadn't actually seen the wound.

Brad and the second man moved into the graveyard. Dean returned to the car. Popped the door and slid in. He started the engine with a quick glance, and set the heaters on soon after. Sam could have hugged him, kissed him, done any number of horrifically chick flick gestures of appreciation. But of course he didn't, just snuggled into the blankets and watched the stars outside.

"It shouldn't take them any more than an hour. Then I'll go salt and burn and it'll all be over."

"Easy," Sam murmured.

"Yeah. Easy." Dean reached into the back seat and withdrew a shotgun. "Can you handle this?"

Sam stared dumbly.

"When they're done digging, I'll have to go over there."

"I'll be okay."

"With a shotgun you will be. Can you handle it?"

"In the car?"

"Yes."

"I guess."

"Don't guess, are you sure?"

No, of course he wasn't, how the hell could he maneuver a shotgun in the cab of the car? "Yeah, I'm sure."

Dean nodded, primed the shotgun and retrieved a second one from the backseat. He got that one ready too, and then lay both on the seat between them.

"Sleep if you can. I'll wake you when they're done digging."

"'kay." Sam rested his head against the window, the heat soothing his mind and relaxing his muscles. He drifted, not quite asleep, but definitely not awake. Might have even dozed off, and soon Dean was nudging him awake.

"They're done. Take this."

Sam stared at the shotgun that was thrust at him. Dean's expression grew pained, and he reached across the tugged the blankets to clear a path for Sam's hands. "Can you do this?"

"Yeah." Sam fumbled for the weapon, the metal cold against his fingers. His hands shook, badly, and he could feel his pulse drumming in his skull.

Dean watched him carefully, one hand resting on the steering wheel, the other clasping the second shotgun. "I'll be ten minutes. No more. Will you be okay?"

As long as dead Conrad didn't show up, sure, Sam would be peachy. He nodded, his thigh cramping and flesh crawling. "Go. I'll be fine."

Famous last words, he thought.

Dean hesitated. "I can get them to do it."

"They won't know how." That much was true. A salt and burn wasn't just throw on some salt, some accelerant and toss in a match. All the remains had to be unearthed and burned. Years of digging up skeletons had made it an art form.

"Lock the doors, and don't let anyone in but me. Not even Brad and his buddy. And if I don't come back, you haul ass out of here." Dean killed the engine, handed him the keys and closed Sam's fingers over them. "You got that?"

Sam nodded, knowing he would do no such thing. If Dean didn't come back, he would crawl through hell to find him. Dean knew it too, because he smiled thinly, then was gone. Out of the car so quickly that Sam barely even felt the whip of cold. Sam watched his brother stoop to collect the accelerant, then run into the graveyard. The darkness swallowed him up.

Alone.

Sam was alone.

The engine off, the keys in one hand, a shotgun in the other. Cold moved in, curling around his toes, hugging his shins, sliding upwards to chill and control.

He didn't register the shift from chill to frigid iciness until it was too late. Frost laced the windows, turned his breath into fog and startled a moan from him.

Dean had been gone less than five minutes. Not long enough to have salted and burned, but still ample enough time for Conrad to take Sam out.

The dead man was in the car. In the back seat. Behind Sam. Breathing hard, deeply. Sam clenched the shotgun, his attention rigidly fixed on the frosted view beyond the windscreen – where his brother had gone.

"Ever seen a chicken with its head cut off?" Conrad said. There was a haughty mocking in the tone, a self-congratulatory jeer.

"Yeah, I have," Sam said. He twisted in the seat, raised the shotgun and fired.