This chapter is a big one, probably the longest one so far (I haven't checked). It's the beginning of the end of the story.

I want to thank everyone for waiting patiently, and my beta K. Hanna Korossy for keeping on me all this time. Thanks especially to my reviewers; you make it all worth my time.

Chapter 13: Incapacitation

"The key to this whole thing is doing enough damage to the demon to stun him so we can trap him," Dean said. They were still a few miles from the spot where they were to start their search, and he had just finished explaining his plan. "We'll probably need a half-hour to dig the hole, and another fifteen minutes to rig the dynamite. The exorcism is the x-factor, but as long as we've got him trapped it should be fine."

Sam nodded silently, but there was some doubt in the younger man's eyes.

"What?" Dean asked.

"Nothing," Sam replied meekly, as though he expected whatever qualms he had would be revealed as foolish or meaningless if he explained them.

"Seriously, dude. What?" Dean insisted.

"I don't know, man, I just don't know why I keep having these visions of how the Anasazi stopped this thing if we're not supposed to use what they show me," Sam replied, nearly apologetic.

No, Dean realized in that moment. This wasn't going to work. He pulled the car over to the side of the road.

"What's going on?" Sam asked, his head popping up to look at Dean.

"That depends on you," Dean said heavily. He turned to meet his brother's eyes. "Can you do this?"

Sam looked genuinely confused. "What?"

"Can you help me with this plan? Yes or no?"

"Dean, if this is about what I said, I know you're right—"

"It's not about what you said, it's about me having to push you to get you to say it," Dean interrupted in frustration. "Because you're right. My plan is shitty. It may be the best plan we've got right now, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be thinking."

"I'm sorry," Sam tried.

"Don't apologize! Just get better!" Dean yelled. The words weren't even out of his mouth before his stomach shrank to the size of a Ping-Pong ball.

Sam looked stunned, hurt, and at least a little angry. "I would if I could," he whispered after an agonizing silence.

"Fuck." Dean sighed heavily. "I'm sorry, Sam. I know you're fighting as hard as you can."

"Then what do you want from me?" Sam asked, his voice betraying just a hint of the hysteria roiling within him. The kid had to be feeling like he was getting it from all sides now, and Dean could see how thin his veneer of control really was. There wasn't time, though, for empty ego-stroking. What Sam needed was a kick in the ass. Either he was strong enough to take it, or he wasn't.

"I want you to give me a sign that some part of my stubborn, preachy, know-it-all bitch-boy of a little brother is still in there," Dean challenged him. "You may not be hallucinating, but you don't look like you're sure you could put your pants on straight without help."

Sam was speechless, stuck between incredulity and indignation, and Dean jumped in again before he could figure out where to land.

"And I don't blame you, man. Really I don't. But if you go into this thinking you can't do anything right, you will screw it up, and that'll get us both killed," Dean continued, his voice finally settling on a stern, authoritative tone. "So here's the deal: if you don't think you can do this—if you think I've got a better chance pulling this off alone—I'll take you to the hospital and you can ride it out there."

The silence that followed ached, and the seconds passed like hours. Sam wanted to scream at him, wanted to take off Dean's head for putting him in this position. Asking Sam to evaluate himself, to consider his own capabilities, was pretty goddamn cruel. It wasn't as if Sam needed reminders of how deficient he was.

He was being offered what he'd wanted at one point; that was true. Of course, since that time, he'd decided he was more afraid of being alone than of being a burden. Dean's arguments for them to stay together, his constant assertions that Sam could help him, had made Sam doubt his worthlessness. Now that Dean wasn't so sure, all Sam had to rely on were his own estimations of himself. And they were not good.

On the other hand, the chance of Dean's plan working without assistance was basically zero. Sam's part in the plan wasn't complicated, but it was impossible for his brother to do his own part as well as Sam's. There was a panic forming now, an intolerable anxiety balling up his stomach. Sam genuinely had no idea what to do. He didn't believe he could help—in fact, he thought it more likely he'd get in the way—but it was absurd to think of Dean trying to accomplish this by himself.

He might have come apart, except by chance he noticed the badly cracked windshield. He remembered that night on the road, when Aphorael had attacked them. The night he'd saved their lives with his quick reflexes and accurate shooting.

Realization flashed in his mind, and with it a surge of welcome and surprising strength. As ineffectual as this disease made him feel, it hadn't stopped him that night. All his training, all his skill, all his talents; they weren't gone just because this disease had diminished them. He wasn't a burden just because he wasn't as strong or capable as his brother.

And this, this was why Dean had no more encouraging words for him. He'd have resisted them. Right now, compliments were veiled insults; all they really meant was that Dean felt Sam needed emotional support. Dean had realized he couldn't prop Sam up anymore. Sam needed to find confidence on his own, or not at all. Miraculously, he had.

"I can't think, and I don't know how much longer I'll have a handle on what's real," Sam started. Dean's body seemed to go limp, as though robbed of some vital energy. Sam paused for a moment, bringing his newfound courage to bear. He raised his head and looked his brother square in the eye, daring, resilient, even competitive. "But I can still shoot straight. And you can't do this alone."

Dean couldn't hide his joy. He smiled broadly and clapped Sam on the shoulder. Sam's serious expression didn't change.

"There something else, big guy?" Dean asked with a smirk.

"Yeah," Sam breathed after a moment, hesitantly. It wasn't a comfortable sound, and Dean immediately recognized the guilty, sullen look on Sam's face. It was the one he got when he was about to say something he knew Dean really didn't want to hear. "If killing this thing doesn't stop this disease, and I keep getting worse…"

Comprehension came like a knife in the stomach, and Dean knew where his brother was going. The look made perfect sense. Anger seemed the appropriate reaction, but Sam was at least quick enough to finish his thought.

"I don't want to live like that," his little brother added bluntly. Even knowing it was coming didn't change how it felt to hear. For a nauseating moment, Dean considered that this was what failure sounded like. After all, if the kid he'd been protecting all this time hurt enough to want to die, Dean must have been doing a pretty awesome job. Even as a conditional, based on some hypothetical future, it was too painful, too wrenching, too ugly to even consider.

Even worse, this wasn't the first time Sam had asked this. How did he not understand? How did he not get that Dean was incapable of this? He would not pull the trigger that would kill the brother he'd twice pulled out of a fire, would not fire the bullet that would realize his greatest fear and leave him fully and finally alone.

"NO!" Dean yelled, startling Sam into jumping back in his seat. "Fuck that, Sammy. What is it with you and asking me to kill you, anyway? I keep telling you: no way in hell. Not ever."

That should have ended it. But Sam just sat there, a desolate look creeping across his face. "I'm not asking for a promise. I'm telling you so you'll know what I want. I mean, Halstadt…" Sam trailed off, clearly battling to hold his calm even as his eyes filled with tears. "What I saw in his eyes, that night in the car…it scared the shit out of me. It wasn't him anymore, and some part of him knew it."

Dean was fighting this as hard as he could, but the fear in the kid's voice, the real mortal dread, was too powerful to ignore.

"I'm terrified, Dean," Sam admitted bleakly, his voice breaking. He swallowed audibly. "I'm more scared of ending up like that than I am of dying. So if you want to protect me from something? Protect me from that."

Dean didn't answer; his insides were so knotted up he wasn't sure he was capable of speech. He just stared at his brother with soft eyes and a set jaw, an unsettling mix of empathy for what Sam was going through and anger for what he was putting Dean through. He wasn't considering it. It was still absolutely unthinkable. But he couldn't deny that this time, at least, Sam's request sounded pretty reasonable.

Dean lay prone in the tall grass at the edge of the hill's flat summit. He'd crawled up the last few feet of the hill, fully aware that the demon would likely be near the altar and watching. Sam's visions hadn't proved particularly useful overall, but they had given them a good understanding of the terrain of the hill. Dean approached from the side closest to the altar and farthest from civilization. From through the grass, he could see the demon pacing perhaps fifty yards away. Dangerously close, but also dangerously distant.

In his hands Dean cradled a very, very large weapon; an invention of his own. It was a black-powder flintlock; a truly old-school weapon that Dean had modified to fire special ammunition: a .60 caliber hollow ball filled with tiny holes stopped up by a quick-burning resin. It could be filled with a variety of substances: dead man's blood for vampires, silver nitrate for shape-shifters, or holy water for demons.

This was the first situation they'd ever encountered in which the weapon would be practically useful. It couldn't kill a demon on its own, and modern firearms were faster, cheaper, and much more accurate. Even a crossbow was faster to reload, and a silver bullet from a .45 was just as good against a werewolf as a high-caliber musket-ball leaking nitrate. But the blessed weapons they'd used so far hadn't had sufficient power to stun the demon for the time they needed. This weapon might. The combination of the size of the round and the holy water that would slowly leak into the demon's body after impact would have to be enough.

Of course, it all relied on him hitting his target. Dean didn't worry about his marksmanship. He worried about the flintlock's precision, especially with a round as aerodynamically unsound as the one he was going to fire.

Dean put his worries aside and braced himself, as he had a thousand times before. In a few minutes, Sam was going to come up the hill from the opposite side. Then this party would begin.

On the other side of the hill, Sam was picking himself up off the ground, his head screaming. He leaned back against a tree, trying to find some position that would alleviate his anguish, with no success. Bizarrely, no vision was forthcoming, and it was beginning to worry him. He reached out for his satchel, dropped when the pain had started, for his water. Instantly, it was in his hand, and a new jolt of pain shot through him.

Sam cracked his eyes open. He'd expected to have to reach farther. But there it was. He grabbed his canteen from inside the bag and took a deep swig.

"It's easier here," said someone immediately beside him.

Sam spun to face the sound and found his brother. "Dean, what are you doing here?" he sputtered confusedly. "You should be set up on the other side of the hill by now."

"I'm not your brother," the figure immediately admitted.

Sam's stomach turned. He brought his hand to his head. "Oh shit," he whispered, trying not to panic. "Oh shit oh shit not now…"

"I'm not a hallucination, either," the not-Dean continued. "I'm here to help you."

"Like I'm going to believe that," Sam mumbled, as though he were saying it to himself. His mind was racing; how was he going to do his part without being distracted? Was he even going to be sane long enough to try?

"That pain you feel? You're having a vision."

"My hallucinations hurt, too," Sam gritted.

"That's true. There's nothing I can say to convince you. But it's important that you listen to me anyway."

"Then stop looking like Dean," Sam replied. "Show me who you really are."

There was a flash, and Sam was back around the Anasazi campfire, looking down into a carved bowl filled with clear water. He caught a glimpse of his own reflection, another alien-yet-familiar Native American face, before reality returned. The Dean-figure looked spent.

"I draw images from your own mind because projecting images into it is harder. For what I'm about to tell you, your brother's face seemed most appropriate."

"You're saying you're the one I connected to? The one who stopped the thing the last time it rose?" Sam asked incredulously.

"Yes. And I don't have much time," the representation said somberly. "Ever since our spell was broken, the magic keeping the creature in check has been weakening."

"And you've been weakening with it."

"Yes."

"What stopped you from coming to me before?"

"I tried. But you resisted."

"I what?"

"Why do you think your visions hurt so much, Sam? Why do they hurt you when Andrew Gallagher's powers didn't, when Max Miller's didn't? Because you resist them. It's why I could only send you visions and dreams."

"And now, what, I'm not resisting as much?"

"Because of the disease." The image smiled and looked off. "We don't have time for all your questions. I'll make this as plain as I can: your plan won't work. You must spill the blood of the first person whose mind the creature took after the spell was broken and pour it over the altar. Only that will seal it again."

"How am I supposed to do that? I don't even know who it is! And even if I did, I don't have time to go find him," Sam complained. His head was still aching, but he fastened his satchel strap and threw it over his shoulder. "Not to mention that I'm pretty sure I'm talking to myself here."

Sam began to stalk up the hill. His hallucination followed. Sam spun and put out his hand, an irrational but emphatic motion. The specter was unmoved, but in front of Sam small trees and bushes rustled loudly and bent away from him, and dirt flew as though blown by a powerful wind Sam couldn't feel. His mind screamed again, and he fell to his knees.

"As I said, it's easier here. There are things about yourself that you're afraid of. You should be afraid of them. But today, you'll have to embrace them to stop something that should scare you even more. That's why—" The thing stopped midsentence, as though something more powerful had cut it off. Of course, that could just be another convincing detail of a hallucination.

Sam writhed on the ground. By the time he'd managed to get his knees under him, the pain had vanished, and with it whatever had been haunting him.

"Wait!" Sam grunted into the air, only restraining his voice for fear the demon would hear him. "Whose blood do I need?"

No answer came. But he'd moved the dirt and the trees, right? Had that been a hallucination, too? He turned to the nearest shrub and thrust out his arm. Nothing. He focused his mind and tried again. Still nothing.

Sam turned to look up the hill, weighing his options. Even his disease- and drug-addled mind could put together that he had no choice but to go through with Dean's plan. He didn't have enough information to try anything else, and he couldn't trust the information he had. But now, added to the plan's improbability of success, his nagging doubts had been renewed; it was hard not to feel as if they were missing something vital.

Aphorael watched the young hunter crest the hill and shuffle clumsily through the grass. The demon smiled. This was going to be easier than he'd assumed.

He put out his hand and the young man fell. Gripping him with telekinetic force, the demon dragged him roughly across the open grass and toward the altar. The man-child pulled a gun from his belt and struggled to aim as he skidded across the coarse ground. The boy fired twice and missed. The demon smiled. It was always so much more gratifying when they fought back.

The demon pulled until the hunter was supine at his feet, gasping pleasingly in pain. Aphorael tossed the man's gun away and kneeled down, grasping his victim by the chin to pull their eyes together.

"You cost me quite a great deal, boy," he said, drinking in the fear and anguish in the young man's eyes. "If it were up to me, I'd spend all day…hurting you. But he wants you dead, and quickly."

The boy pulled a knife from his boot and buried it in the demon's chest. It wasn't blessed, but it certainly hurt and Aphorael fell back. The hunter scrambled up and ran for his gun…too late.

The demon grabbed him invisibly and yanked him back around before flinging him against one of the flat altar stones and pinning him there. He held him tightly, squeezing his ribcage and throat painfully. Standing over the boy, he drew the hunter's knife out of his chest and brandished it.

"My child," the former pastor said, coming up to his full height as he wiped the blade off on his tattered robes. "Do you know that you bear the mark of a demon? I wonder what the afterlife holds for things like you."

The little thing looked up at him, pained but defiant, and gasped, "I know what it's got in store for you."

There was a thunderous boom, a flash of horrific pain, and the demon's world went black.

Having secured the demon with their Key of Solomon bedsheet, Dean helped his brother to his feet.

"How bad?" Dean asked.

"Okay…," Sam said, wincing. "Except for my arm. And my leg. And my ribs, chest, and back. Oh, and my throat's going to hurt for a week. Think you could have waited any longer?"

"No, I think that was good enough. Good distraction as usual, Sammy."

Sam looked over at the demon, who was leaned, seemingly unconscious, against the invisible wall produced by the trap. "Did we actually knock a demon out?"

"Looks like. That must be what happens when you get holy water inside one. Anyway, you should get started on the exorcism. I'll start the dig."

The ground trembled, not violently, but with an ominous rumble. Dean surveyed the horizon and saw low, dark clouds ringing the clear sky above them, closing in from every direction. He looked over at Sam, who was making the same observation.

"Yeah, we should probably move this along," Sam agreed.

"Can you believe he really thinks this'll work?"

Sam gritted his teeth, trying as hard as he could to ignore the image of himself that had materialized just minutes before. He was almost done with the exorcism, the demon howling in agony. The holy water in the slug they'd hit him with had run out a while ago; Sam could tell from the lack of steam. If the demon was in pain, it was because the exorcism was working.

"I mean, he's actually talking about blowing up some apocalyptic monster with fucking dynamite. If it weren't so pathetic, it'd be hilarious."

It was hard to keep his train of thought. The ground was shaking harder now, and more frequently. The sky darkened as the clouds drew in.

"In nomino deus omnipotentas, mandam—"

"Idiot says what?"

"Mandam fates…" Sam looked down at the book he was holding having lost his place.

"What's wrong?" the demon taunted, gasping. "Trouble concentrating?"

"Shut the hell up."

"Good comeback, Sammy." Now it was Dean beside him. "Not exactly surprised to see you messing up. That's pretty much your M.O. You fuck up and you bitch. That's about it."

"In nomino deus omnipotentas," Sam restarted.

"Sam, you having trouble over there?" Dean yelled from where he was digging. "Why isn't that thing in hell yet?"

"I'm fine!" Sam shouted in frustration. "Omnipotentas, mandam—"

A much larger, more violent quake shook the earth beneath him. Sam tripped and fell down, dropping the tattered book. Several of the pages, held only by paper clip, went flying. Sam yelped and scrambled to collect them. The demon laughed arrogantly behind him.

"He's not going to let you send me back, hunter."

"Hey, butterfingers! You ask me, you're lucky Dad never let you play sports."

Sam dropped to his knees with the pages in his hands, but they weren't numbered and he couldn't remember their order. He shuffled them around, trying to find where he was and what he still had left to read.

"Sammy, you all right? That one was a doozy!"

"Shut up! Just shut up!" Sam yelled, equal parts rage and panic.

"What's going on out there, Sam?" Dean asked surprise in his voice. Sam could hear tools clattering and assumed his brother was dropping what he was doing.

"Fucking up again. That's really too bad, Sammy, because now it's all going to be on you. This town is toast, maybe this whole state; we're both going to die and it's all your fault."

"Stop," Sam whispered to himself in a moment of hysteria. It took everything he had to reorder the papers and clip them back together. He stood.

Another quake hit, and this one was even bigger. Sam fell again, this time holding onto the book, but the earth beneath a part of the sheet encircling the demon split, some of the underlying rock jutting sharply upward. The sheet began to tear, and Sam leaped to grab it.

Dean lifted himself out of the hole to a horrifying sight: his brother on his knees in front of the demon, clawing and scratching fruitlessly at the hand gripping his throat. Dean's hand went to his belt and he drew his .45, but it was out of his grip and in the demon's before he could get off a single shot. An unseen force threw him against the ground and dragged him across the shivering earth to his brother's side.

He climbed to his knees, but the force would let him go no further. He turned to look at Sam, still struggling against the demon's hand. Terror gripped him. They'd been so close, but now he couldn't think of anything to do. The demon released Sam's neck, but by force of will kept both brothers on their knees.

"I've had more than enough of the two of you," the demon seethed, beginning to pace in front of them. Dean tried to sputter a glib reply, but found he couldn't speak. "The only question is, which one of you dies first?"

The brothers' eyes met, and Dean saw in Sam's almost palpable guilt. Unless Dean did something quick, Sam was going to die believing everything was his fault.

"I think the fool who tried to exorcise me should get to see what his failure will cost him," Aphorael said, turning to Sam. "What do you think about that? You get to watch your brother die."