A/N Where I am, the New Year has not yet come upon us. So I got this up and posted before the end of the year! Mission accomplished!

V

I'll give you a sun to warm your song,

So your heart will remember it's free;

And a wind to lift your tattered wings,

And fly you home to me.

The rain came down in sheets, soaking the police officers and FBI agents below, water seeping through their jackets. From where he stood, Sam could hear Lieutenant Azazel talking to Agent Lucifer – Nick Lucien, but Gabriel had called him Lucifer and the name stuck—about the strategy for approaching the large concrete building in which the Silent Hunter was hiding. An anonymous tip had come in, and the behavioralists and profilers hemmed and hawed and conferred among themselves before finally agreeing that the tip was a very good one. An abandoned building on the outskirts of the industrial zone, isolated and lonely; it was perfect, befitting a protégé of M.C. Alastair. Sam shivered, the movement shaking drops from the edge of his hooded jacket.

"Hey Sam," Gabriel said, sidling up beside him and bumping an elbow against Sam's arm,

"Tonight's the night, officer. You up and rarin' to go?"

Sam grimaced, running a hand through his hair, slicking it back in the process.

"Agent Laufeysen, you are entirely too chipper."

"Sugar high. You ought to be used to it by now." Sam rolled his eyes when the agent took out a chocolate bar and broke off a chunk, popping it into his mouth and chewing slowly. Gabriel continued,

"Besides, if all goes well, when this night is over you'll all be able to rest easy in your beds. And I get to go home to my dog; who is probably tearing up my brother's apartment." He sighed fondly and held the bar out to Sam. Sam broke off a chunk for himself and took a bite. It wasn't as sweet as he expected it to be. When it hit his tongue, it was a spike of energy, but it was also soothing and calming. No wonder the agent was constantly eating this stuff in all the time Sam had known him.

"Lucifer's going with his team through the front. We're going to go around and through the side. I'm glad you're on my team."

"Really now?"

"Yeah! Smart boy like you; you'd make a great agent."

They pulled out their guns, giving them one last once over, silently praying that their weapons won't fail them. Gabriel finished his chocolate and wadded up the wrapper, stuffing it into his pocket.

"Hell, even Lucifer likes you. If you ever set your sights on the FBI, I'd be happy to recommend you."

Sam shook his head, smiling despite the gravity of the situation they were in. That was Gabriel for you. He could feel the tension in his shoulders loosen as he took comfort in the pure warmth of the other man's friendliness. It seemed nothing could taint or mar it; not even hunting a serial killer. Sam turned his gaze back to the ominously gloomy building.

"First, let's make it out of this thing alive."

"Well, yeah, Sam-stein. That's kind of required."

Gabriel's whipped his focus back to Lucifer. There was a silent exchange of hand signals on Lucifer's part and lots of arm waving and exaggerated facial expressions on Gabriel's part. Lucifer rolled his eyes and waved at his men to follow him forward. Gabriel turned back to Sam, flashing him a toothy, predatory grin. He waved at the others in their unit to tell them to start moving to the side of the building.

"Well, off we go into the fray."

Save for the sound of rain on the tin roof, the building was dead quiet. Sam could feel the fear begin to rise in the others around him and course through his own veins. He was too aware of his own heart beat. His breaths became shallower as he tried to keep his breathing quiet, straining his ears to listen.

And then, like a clap of thunder, the sound of a single bullet fired from a revolver bounced and reverberated against the concrete walls. Gabriel took off in the direction of the shot, Sam close behind.

"Let me get this straight. You want to be in a small enclosed room alone with one of the most dangerous men in this prison; who is, I might add, set to be lethally injected in five days?"

"Mr. Walker, considering how many wheels had to be greased to get me here even negotiating this with you today, I highly doubt Detective Miles didn't fill you in."

Gordon Walker, the prison warden and keeper of the keys, scoffs and rolls his eyes. From inside his crisp suit jacket, he pulls out a stapled packet of papers folded in thirds and tossed it dismissively onto his desk, passing Sam a pen. Sam raises his eyebrows and accepts the pen, removing the cap.

"That's the agreement saying that you can't sue the prison for any injuries incurred in this facility and if you're taken hostage, we will not negotiate for your release."

Sam meets Walker's gaze evenly as he signs the document.

"Your funeral."

The warden pockets the papers, saying "walk this way" as he leads Sam through the prison and into a room with one barred window. There's a metal table welded to the middle of the room, and two cold metal chairs placed on either side of it. On the other side of the room, across from the door Sam entered from, was another ponderously heavy door. Walker leaves a panic button in the room before exiting.

"Hit this when you're done talking. He'll be in shortly."

Sam tosses his folder of papers onto the table and slumps down in one of the chairs, burying his face in his hands and running his fingers through his hair. This was stupid. This was unnecessary. This was the last place on earth that he wanted to be. His internal Gabriel, perpetually hyped up on sugar, hops up and down in frustration and threatens to go berserk if he dares to back himself out. Sam lets out a huff of frustration.

"Get it together, Sam. Suck it up."

In the distance, he can hear the clang of metal. He perks up, letting his ears take in the sounds coming nearer.

Clinking metal shackles. Footsteps on concrete. The slide of barred metal doors.

The door opens, and Dean Smith is led into the room under an escort of four guards. They seat him at the other chair, chaining his shackles to the table legs. The head guard gives Sam a nod before they exit, a silent assurance that they would answer promptly when he hits the panic button. Dean keeps his head turned, listening behind him as they exit. It's only when the sounds of them have faded completely away that he turns his focus to Sam. Sam doesn't give himself time to hesitate or lose his nerve.

"My name is Sam Wesson. I am a detective and I'm investigating a recent set of murders. I'm here to consult with you because you possibly have insight into the case. There are no cameras in this room; no recording devices. It's just you and me."

In the time that Sam speaks, Dean lets his attention wander to the barred window. The light streaming in gives his eyes a haunting glow and casts worn shadows on his tired face. Sam sees a broken man, so very distant from the one that glared out at him from five years ago.

"Do you think," his eyes flicked up to Sam's, "you could get them to shut the lights off?"

Sam tilts his head, a noise of confusion escaping his lips. Dean leans back in his chair, his gestures towards the ceiling accompanied by the high chinkling of metal upon metal.

"They keep them on 24/7 in my cell. You'd think it was a waste of electricity, but no. My hours are filled with the sound of a fluorescent, sixty second hum. Sometimes I wonder who I have to kill to get them to flip off the light switch. Well," he meets Sam's eyes again, a spark of playfulness dancing behind them, "not literally."

Sam folds his hands on the table.

"I have no power to negotiate anything with the prison staff."

"Then why the hell would I even talk to you?" Dean snorts.

"You can always go back to the hum."

Dean licks his lips and returns his gaze out the window. His eyes lose focus and Sam imagines his mind flies far and farther away, like the little birds that Jess liked to watch hop about the back porch in winter. They don't have time for this. Sam opens his manila folder and tosses a stack of photographs onto the table. Dean picks it up, shuffling through them. He grimaces at the crime scene photos of Zachariah Adler and Dick Roman and tosses them out of the stack in disgust. But he pauses over the rest, his eyes drinking in the images. He strokes a finger over the face of one, a pretty girl with dirty blonde hair and peacefully closed eyes. Unlike the others, her body is undamaged, saved for a single needle mark on the side of her neck.

"Layla Rourke." Sam says, hoping to break whatever trance Dean had slipped into. Dean slides the photos back, but his eyes linger upon them.

"She was…pure. Kind. She didn't deserve the shit Life gave her."

"You're right, Dean. She didn't deserve to get a brain tumor. She didn't deserve to find out that she only had six months left to live. She didn't deserve to die, Dean. And you killed her."

Dean slams his hand down on the table. The sound of it rings through the room like a clap of thunder.

"You know nothing, Sammy." He snarls.

"Don't call me that." Sam hisses.

"What? Sammy? That's who you are," Whatever wall that held Dean back before was gone now; the pretense of being broken, dropped and cast away, "You're not Sam Wesson any more than I'm Dean Smith. It's fake," he smirks, and his eyes shine with a dark, bitter gleam, "It's a pipe dream. I know who you are."

"Don't."

"Sam Winchester. My Babybro. I'd recognize your soul anywhere. Though I gotta say, the police thing is a bit of a surprise."

"What," Sam rises to the bait, his anger bubbling to the surface, "You thought I'd be like you?"

"No," Dean leans back, lifting two of his chair's legs off of the floor and giving Sam a small smile, "I thought maybe you'd grow up to be some big shot lawyer. I like it though. It means you are like me."

"I'm nothing like you." Sam growls; drawing out the 'o' of 'nothing.' In his mind's eye, he sees himself unwinding his anger like a ball of thread as he walked further into the labyrinth of Dean's design.

"Of course you are," Dean answers matter-of-factly, "You were in the Night Hunt. It stained your very being so nothing can wash it out. Not drugs, not drink, not sex. It made you a hunter like me."

"Is that what you did to Castiel Novak? Make him a hunter like you?"

Dean's eyebrows shoot up, and his eyes change from predatory to open; almost human. The court belongs to Sam now, and he must reign supreme. For everyone's sake, he must. Dean shifts forward, returning his chair's legs firmly to the ground. His face is open and earnest, and under the surface is an emotion Sam can't quite pin down.

"Cas? Cas is like sweet rain. He's above and beyond anything you or I could ever hope to be. He's an angel."

He wants Sam to understand. Dean needs Sam to understand. And in that realization, it dawns on Sam what it is he is seeing in Dean.

Desperation.

The invincible Dean Smith found his weakness, not in the vast world of the outside, but in the controlled stillness inside concrete walls. It had to be some kind of cosmic joke.

He pulls out the photos of the copycat's—is there really any doubt left that Castiel is the copycat?—victims, tossing them onto the cold, metal of the table.

Dean gives the photographs a cursory glance, and Sam does not miss the small smile that graces his face. Nor does he miss the words that Dean murmurs almost tenderly.

"He does love me."

Sam almost feels bitterness like bile rising from his throat.

"And if truly loves you, he will walk along the same path. The Night Hunt…?"

"And the last for the hunters now hunted."

Cold creeps into the room, seeping through the layers of Sam's clothes to whisper against his skin as the pieces fall into place and realization sets in.

"It was you who called it in. You were the anonymous tip," Sam lets out a disbelieving huff of air, a small part of him surprised that he couldn't see his breath leaving him in a puff of fog, "You talk about him like he's untouchable. He's not Dean. He's human. He was human and you destroyed him just as you destroyed them," Sam waves his hands over the photos of Dean's victims, "You destroyed everything that he was and re-made him in your image. You killed him, Dean."

"No!" Dean's voice rings loud and clear in the room. He sets his mouth in a firm line, swallowing the lump in his throat. Softly, he continues, "No. Have you ever been so close to someone that you forgot where you ended and they began? Shared so much of each other that even breathing made you a part of them? If I re-made him, as you seem to think, it was only to make him whole. The world could go fuck itself for all we cared, because I mattered and he mattered.

"You look at me. And I can see you trying to get a bead on what I am. But you can't. I'm beyond you. I am Death, Sam. These walls? They are nothing and they mean nothing."

"The spell…"Sam whispers. And it hits him with the weight of an ocean wave; everything that was happened and was happening again, "He's trying to get back to you."

Dean smirks back at him, his eyes burning slow like the tip of a cigarette. He is himself once more, in all his awful glory. Even as he gathers the photographs into a neat stack, tapping the ends to square the edges, he glows with pride. He lowers his eyes demurely as he pushes the stack back to Sam.

"Fly away, Babybro. Fly far, far away."

As he is dragged out, Dean turns his head back to look one last time at Sam,

"It really was good to see you, Detective."

Babybro,

It's hard to lose someone. It's even harder when someone gets taken away, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Sam slumps into his desk, rubbing his eyes and willing away the world for just five minutes. From across the way, he hears Ash groaning and throwing what sounds like a pencil down. Sam tilts his head back, and the light shining down from the ceiling pierces through his eyelids, painting a flat scarlet world.

"What's it look like in your part of the world, Ash?"

"Deskwork. Lots and lots of deskwork. You and Gabriel are going to do the paperwork when this is over, not me."

Sam chuckles softly to himself. They really had dumped a lot of the researching on Ash. As soon as he returned to his car parked outside of the prison, he called Ash and an APB was put out for Castiel Novak. Currently, the other detective is digging up what he can on the ex-con, sifting through the known contacts and gathering information for Gabriel to draw up a profile the next time he was in the station.

As if on cue, the light on Sam's desk phone lights up. Speak of the devil.

"Detective Wesson."

"Hey, Sam. I bet you'll never guess where I am."

"Oh no." Sam slumps in his chair, but grabs a pencil and a notepad.

"Oh yes. Our Novak's been a busy boy. Though thankfully, he was gentle this time around."

Gabriel gazes down at the body of Lenore Hector. Outside, her husband was giving Officer Tran his statement. He kneels down next to her.

"Nice lady by all accounts. Service projects, volunteer work, sandwiches for the homeless."

She looks peaceful, almost asleep. He says as much to Sam.

"She had tumors behind her eyes. She was going to go blind soon."

"Dude, I don't even wanna know how you know that."

"Sir?"

Gabriel glances up at Officer Tran, raising a questioning eyebrow at the young officer.

"The husband has something you should hear. Apparently, they recently helped someone who matches Novak's description."

"Right." He tells Sam he'd get back to the station soon and ends the call.

Dearheart,

It's hard to comfort the dying. It's so hard. I feel so useless.

Five years ago

He opened the door, locking it behind him and dropping the keys on the end table.

"Dean? Is that you?" a weak voice called from the master bedroom.

"Yeah, it's me." He made his way up the stairs, padding softly through the hall before finally coming to a stop before the door. He took a deep breath, and opened the door inside.

Death filled the space; stared out from the corners; crept in the shadows. Particles of it floated in every breath of air. Dean walked into the room and Death parted for him, allowing him through. He knelt down by her bedside, waiting for her to open her tired, pain-filled eyes.

When she did, she took in the sight of him, crusted in blood, with a steady gaze. Slowly, she lifted her hand from the covers and raised it to cup his face. She stroked a gentle thumb across his cheek bone, and Dean closed his eyes, savoring the contact.

"You took me into your house," he murmured, "You gave me a place to rest. You fed me. You showed me love, even though you didn't have to." He opened his eyes to see her smiling. He held her hand to his cheek and kissed the palm.

"Can you make it stop hurting?"

He sniffled and kissed her hand once more.

"Sure. It's the least I can do."

Dean stood up and rustled around in his jacket pockets until found and he pulled a large syringe. He removed it from its package, placed the needle inside, and pulled back the plunger until it was filled with air. He sat down on the side of the bed and gently pushed the hair out of her face with his free hand.

"Now you're going to feel a little pressure." He joked. She smiled in return, leaning into his touch. As gently as he could, he inserted the needle into her carotid artery. He placed the syringe on the bed covers and cupped her face between her hands. Dean kissed her forehead and watched silently, waiting for the embolism to do its work.

"Goodnight, Layla."

When she drew her last breath, and her heart gave its final beat, Dean lifted her from the covers and carried her into the bathroom. He stripped the sheets, changing them out for newer, cleaner ones, and dumped the soiled sheets in the laundry basket. He washed her body carefully, removing any trace of sickness. He dressed her in a clean nightgown, arranged her carefully on the bed, and before he turned off all the lights, he left a note on the end table by the front door.

A/N I swear, I had the "I am Death" line written before Desolation of Smaug.