A/N: I've just now realised that I may have been switching randomly between UK and US English over the last couple of chapters. I'm trying to make the switch to US (it feels oddly like some kind of betrayal...), so please bear with me! I'll re-load the previous chapters soon.

Meantime, enjoy one of my favourite chapters!

~~HoC~~

Hour's Getting Late

Outside in the cold distance,

A wild cat did growl.

Two riders were approachin',

And the wind began to howl.

~~HoC~~

It was like drifting from one nightmare to the next.

The howling followed him, winding along the scars on his throat, a light, taunting pressure that never quite faded as he let the world filter back into his senses, slowly, one at a time.

Dry dust, somewhere beneath it the faint, bitter tang of old blood. Grit against his skin, sweat dried sticky in his joints, dull ache of old bruises cut through with the sharp, sickening burn of tooth and claw. Voices, murmuring and whispering, a thin wail quickly hushed and Sam, closer than the rest, mumbling something that sounded like Latin.

Finally, he blinked, cracked one eye a fraction, peered out at an expanse of white pillowcase faded to ivory. The light, dim as it was, detonated in his skull and his breath caught as he let his eyelid slam shut again.

"Dean?"

He winced at the taut query, whispered a curse under his breath and even that sent fire spiking through his brain.

"Inside voice, Sammy."

Instead, a hand settled on his shoulder, squeezed gently before it disappeared. He risked opening an eye again, watched as a Sammy-shaped blur moved quietly to the end of the bed, stooped and rummaged through the bag there. The sound of skin against canvas was deafening, the rattle of pills thunder slamming from one side of his head to the other.

He held his breath, lips tight against it, dimly aware of a hush settling over the room as he listened to his brother coming back.

"Here."

Sam barely breathed it, helped him sit up enough to dry swallow the pills. Blinking sandy, scratchy eyes he eased back into the pillows, burying one ear in them, letting the roar of blood in his ears drown out the noises outside the room and just drifted.

He swore he could feel the pain fading, draining out of him slowly, with every breath until all that was left was a sullen ache, shifting restlessly inside his head like static. He dragged open one eye, peered through sticky lashes at the shadowy room. From the corner of his vision, a slice of bright light escaped the curtains to arc down one wall and onto the floor and he squinted at it, figured he'd lost enough time for the sun to tip past its zenith.

Dean rolled over, pushed up onto his elbows, waited for the world to settle again.

"Hi."

He turned slowly, carefully; saw the red-head perched knees up on a chair by his bed.

"Hey," he rasped.

"How're ya feelin'?"

Flashing his teeth in a quick smile, the hunter pushed himself back until his shoulders met the headboard.

"Awesome."

She stared at him, eyes wide and unreadable.

"Kate, right?"

She nodded, still didn't say anything.

"Kate, where's my brother?"

A soft snore answered for her and they both grinned a little. He rolled his head along the edge of the threadbare velvet, saw Sam stretched out on the next bed. One booted foot dangled over the edge.

Huffing out a rough chuckle, he dragged his own feet out from the blankets, blinking for a moment at the layers as he belatedly realized his brother slept on nothing but the sheets, every spare blanket heaped on top of his own bed. Dean fingered the thick wool, felt the weight of them against his thighs, heavy and constricting and way too familiar.

It wasn't something he'd ever wanted to feel again.

The dull burn of over-strained muscles made itself known, every inch of him aching, a last few shivers snaking up his spine from that cold spot at the base of it.

There weren't that many memories he wished he could forget. In a lifetime of fighting, of monsters under the bed and in the closet, he was sometimes surprised there weren't more and he just didn't think about that other lifetime.

But there were a few, too vivid in his mind, carved deep into him that he wanted to scour away with whiskey and lust, with violence and fury. The slim edge of fire through a half-open door, weight thrust into his arms too soon, too young. Walking through the diner's door, thick blood-stench and Wrapped Around Your Finger warbling from the jukebox, 'Devil and the deep blue sea behind me, vanish in the air you'll never find me,' slapping him in the face, almost sending him reeling back into the flood outside. Weight in his arms, no more and no less than it was twenty-four years earlier, but so cold and empty he literally felt his heart stop and shatter. Claws tearing through him, body and soul as he screamed helplessly, unable to fight it, unable to not try. Hazel eyes, feral in the dark, too bright above him as his arm shook and bone cracked under his fingers.

And cold, sinking into him, bone-deep, a dead man's hate whispering in his ear as it dragged him under. A laugh that sounded like gravestones cracking.

He shuddered, shook his head hard as if he could shake all the memories out through his ears, winced as the motion slewed the room on its axis and woke the heavy white noise to a dull roar bouncing off the inside of his skull. One hand curled into a fist, twisting the blankets into a knot in his palm. He stared at it hazily, willing the pain down until he could feel again.

When he looked up, he met his brother's sleepy gaze.

Sam blinked at him, slowly, almost smiled and Dean would have given anything, paid any price gladly, just to see that look of comfortable innocence stay in his brother's eyes.

Between one breath and the next, it faded. The younger man rolled smoothly to his feet as Dean looked back down at the fist on his thigh and watched his fingers uncurl, one by one.

"Hey."

He forced something like a smile, gave it up before it made it halfway onto his lips and pulled away from the touch that brushed against his shoulder, uncomfortably aware of the girl staring at his back. He knew the scar alongside his spine peeped over the collar of his shirt, a knot of pale, rough tissue that pulled as he rolled his left shoulder and hissed at the pain that trickled down from elbow to wrist.

"Your arm isn't a great chew toy, Dean."

He glanced up, startled, the harsh joke oddly, jarringly familiar from those first few months after the deal, when a year still seemed like forever. It hadn't really been funny when he'd said it then, either.

Sam shrugged at him, a half-smile twisting his face ruefully as Dean held his arm out, fingers flickering over the bandages wrapping it to the elbow until they fell away. He only had hazy flashes of the night before: stumbling back to the motel as dawn broke apart the horizon, a ragged procession of hunters and innocents; Sam dumping him on one chair, pouring whiskey down his throat like water as he unwound the dripping shirt from his arm then the tug and drag of thread through his skin following him down into the dark. Dean winced at the black stitching winding around his elbow, a few needle marks tracing the paths of the thread and he recognized the doughy feeling in his flesh that Lidocaine left behind.

"Still numb?"

It was a low murmur, but as he nodded he couldn't decide if that was in deference to the pounding reverberating in his skull that he was sure his brother had to be able to hear, or if it was because of the quiet whimpers drifting over from the far corner of the room.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Kate unfold herself from the chair, walking quick and soft around the edge of the room, gaze fixed to the window. She gathered the pale-haired toddler up, rocked him gently, cooing under her breath but she never took her eyes off the drawn curtains.

Dean looked a question at his brother.

"They're still out there. It sounds like they're looking for survivors."

"Crap," he breathed, trying not to flinch as Sam probed one swollen row of stitching.

"Yeah. Goofer dust's holding them for now, but I think it stops them catching our scent as much as anything. Soon as they figure out we're here…"

He didn't need to finish.

Hellhounds didn't just run wild, didn't just slaughter a whole town. They didn't look for survivors. Demons did.

Was one night away from it too much to ask? One night without angels and demons dragging us into their war?

He huffed out a bitter sigh as Sam worked antibiotic gel into the stitches and re-wrapped his arm.

"Think they're here for us?"

Dean quirked an eyebrow at his brother.

"Right. No such thing as coincidence. But why now?"

"I don't know. Maybe one of Alistair's flunkies made it out, brought in reinforcements. Maybe they're looking for Cas. Hell, maybe they miss me down there, decided to get take-out for the welcome home party at the same time."

He bit off the sour retort and hissed out a breath between his teeth as worn fingers tightened painfully around his forearm, digging into the nerves.

"Sorry."

Sam jerked one shoulder, shrugging the apology off but his fingers kept tugging at the bandages, fiddling with ends that weren't loose and he didn't look up. Dean let his eyes close for a moment, just wanting to shut the world out for a while.

Just wanting to forget.

…there is no forgetting…

His own words, playing on an endless, soft loop in his head for months. Sometimes he clung to it, pulled the memories close, razor-sharp as they were, held tight to the pain of them and the humanity it etched into him.

…there is no making it better…

"Sam."

"Yeah."

Carefully neutral. Masked. It made something inside him ache, hollow and sad to hear the walls in his brother's voice, to see them in his eyes, though he was better at hiding them than Dean ever was. He waited for a beat, grinned wryly as he spoke again.

"I'm an ass."

The younger man snorted, eyes flickering up to his as he hesitated, nodded slowly, lips curling up at the edges.

"You're not meant to agree," Dean muttered as he pulled his arm gently from Sam's hands and leaned over the side of the bed, rummaging with his good hand through his duffel until he found a shirt, tugged it free and pushed wearily up off the bed. Even his feet ached as he stood and he scowled for a moment, shook it off and shrugged gingerly into the thick plaid as he walked slowly to the window, leaning against the wall as he peered out through the narrow gap in the curtains.

The street was empty, mottled in the early afternoon light, dusty. Motes hung on the air, still and motionless and he could imagine wading through it, sun like syrup on his skin.

He frowned.

There were no trees to cast the shadows he was looking at, perspective skewed and disjointed to disguise the reality. He swallowed hard as he realized it was blood that stained the road and sidewalks, turning away as a shudder crept under his skin and found his brother carefully not looking at him.

Stretching, he rolled his shoulders and wandered idly to the table, limping just a little. Dropping into a chair, he tugged at the papers strewn over the top, heard Sam huff in annoyance as he rearranged them, fingers only hesitating once as they slipped over the ancient woodcut and he remembered running through the trees, branches whipping at his face as he tried to breathe just tried to breathe because breathing meant air in his lungs meant he could keep running meant he could live a little longer until it was there in front of him where it couldn't have been because it was behind him, dammit it was behind him and he turned and turned and it was always there in front of him, snarling up from the page when he woke up from the dream or nightmare or freaking premonition.

Dean blinked, flipped the book shut and buried it under print-outs. He scanned through them, skipping over pages describing hell-hounds, black shucks, devil dogs, every kind of demonic Hound ever whispered of in myth and lore.

He knew what was out there, didn't need to confirm it in some ancient book.

"How many?"

His eyes flicked up from the text he was re-reading as Sam dropped into the chair opposite him.

"How many what?"

The younger man didn't answer for a moment and he looked up again, more slowly, saw hazel eyes dart away from his as Sam chewed at a lip.

"All these books. Everything Bobby and I… everything we found. How many of them had ever seen a Hellhound? I couldn't… they were invisible. Before. With Evan Hudson."

The clarification felt like the lie it was.

Oh.

He forced a shrug, felt it pull at the stitches in his arm and drew it in to his side.

"Count yourself lucky. Fugly sonsabitches."

He could tell by the silence all he'd done was swap sorrow and guilt for anger and bitterness and ground his teeth together hard enough that his jaw creaked.

Not now. He just… couldn't. Not now, when the hounds were still howling on the other side of town, the whisper of sound scraping over his skin like sandpaper.

"Find anything on how to kill them?"

Somehow, it came out almost normal and he felt strangely proud of the fact.

"No."

Sam just sounded like he had a hairball choking him. One made of razor wire.

"Nothing."

"'Course not. That would be easy."

On the other side of the room, the red-head mumbled something into the child's head, her lips buried in his hair. Dean was half-aware of her, more aware of Sam but he felt her stiffen before he saw the shadow slip over the curtains. He froze, heart thudding once in his chest, hard. Forced himself to pull in a slow breath over his teeth, tasting a rank, musky scent on his tongue, cut through with heavy sulfur and dropped one hand, glacially slow, to the table top and the handle of the shotgun peeping out from beneath the drifts of paper.

From the corner of his eye, Sam shook his head, tiny movement that stilled his hand before he could draw the gun. Didn't stop him curling his fingers around the stock, but he left it buried for now and watched.

None of them moved as the shadow flitted back and forth across the window a few times, waited until it snorted a thick, foul breath under the door and moved on.

Dean looked at his brother; saw the tension coil along Sam's shoulders.

"They do that often?"

Sam rolled his neck until it crackled softly.

"Now and then."

"Any…" he trailed off, shot a glance at the girl in the corner of the room, saw Kate and the child in her arms watching him and changed what he was going to say. "Anything else?"

Sam looked back at him, steady and calm and he wondered if anyone else could see the naked terror in his brother's eyes.

The unasked question; Any sign of survivors?

"No. Nothing."

Dean sighed wearily, pulled his hand away from the shotgun and rubbed at one temple, trying to knead the ache away. He dropped his voice to a near whisper, leaned in close.

"Could be on the other side of town maybe. Holed up somewhere."

The younger man looked at him.

"Someone who happened to have goofer dust handy and knew to use it?"

"I know. Still. We should look."

We have to. I have to, Sam.

They spoke so quietly that even with their heads close enough for him to want to sneeze as his brother's long hair tickled his nose, they could barely hear each other.

Sam nodded silently but his stare pinned Dean to the spot for a moment, a thousand cautions called up and thrown back at him. He grinned faintly, crookedly and rolled his shoulders, frowning when he wanted to wince as pain burned along his arm for a moment.

Curling his fingers in he tucked his arm against his side, dragged the shotgun from the table, letting papers scatter to the floor. Sam stood slowly, leaned casually in to catch them, eyes flickering from Dean's face to the door to the red-head as she moved back to the corner.

"You up for this?" the younger man murmured, quiet enough that it wouldn't carry.

Dean shrugged one shoulder.

"Not seeing much of a choice here, dude."

"I could go."

He just quirked an eyebrow at that, not needing to recount the dozens of reasons why that was a bad plan. Sam pushed anyway, leaning even closer, glare hot and worried.

"Dean…"

He got it, he did. He knew Sam had watched him get torn apart by Hellhounds. Had found him as good as dead in that goddamned basement in Litchfield, had found him hanged in Arriba and watched the Revenants' curse try and kill him.

And Sam had watched him claw his way out of the nightmares, over and over and said nothing. He knew what it cost his brother to do that but it didn't matter.

"No, Sam. Need you here, keeping an eye on the crèche."

Need you safe.

Sam huffed, didn't bother to keep it quiet as he turned away, arms folded across his chest, t-shirt tight over his broad shoulders. Dean took a step towards him, an apology reluctant weight on his tongue but his brother sighed, relaxed.

"Yeah. I know."

Sam moved away, easy grace in the gloom and Dean suddenly missed his brother, missed the kid who'd kicked through dead leaves in fall, chattering carelessly. He watched the familiar stranger crouch by the bed, rummage through the bag and turn back to him, holding out a heavy bundle, his wrist sheath piled on top.

He forced his eyes to meet Sam's, disconnected, as though someone else reached out with his hand to take the battered flask and bible, rolled up in thick black cotton marked with sigils to bind demons. It was one of the things that had been in the trunk after he got back from the pit. Kind of a portable devil's trap, Sam had explained it as he'd looked a question at the younger man. He'd grinned, answered awesome and gone back to rummaging through the trunk, putting things back the way he liked it, trying to ignore the ache under his breastbone at even needing to do so.

"Be careful."

He blinked, saw something glitter in his brother's eyes and smiled softly, slipping the tangle of leather over his hand and fumbling with the straps, buckling it into place. Tried to keep his answer cocky and light and knew he failed.

"You know it, dude."

Sam sighed, turned away and broke a second shotgun, short barrel reflecting the room in warped monochrome, twitching as he loaded it with salt. Snapping it closed again, he looked over to the corner and Dean watched him scan the lines of black dust and white salt, calm veneered ruthlessly over unease, familiar as the face in the mirror.

His heart thudded in his throat, a sharp pulse of fear spiking through his nerves.

"Sam."

The younger man looked at him, twitched one shoulder in query. He didn't even know what he'd been about to say, fear subsiding as quickly as it had come, taking the words with it and he dropped his eyes, looked for something to do with his hands. The Desert Eagle he rarely carried – its stopping power was enough to drop most fuglies in their tracks but it was heavy and it kicked like a mule – went into another pocket, the bulky gun dragging the jacket down on one side until he dropped two handfuls of spare shells into the other side.

"Just…"

Sammy, be careful.

Sam's mouth curled up at the corner, a flicker of a smile.

"You know it."

Dean nodded jerkily, huffed out a rough laugh, grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair, shrugged it on and dropped the bundle Sam had given him into one pocket. He knelt quickly, skimmed his fingers over the knife in his boot, felt them tremble once, faintly and curled them into fists, shaking them out again a moment later, rotating his hand against the sheath on his wrist as he pushed back to his feet.

His Colt went into the back of his jeans, cold metal warming quickly against his skin, the familiar pattern of the grip oddly comforting, soothing the ache of tiredness and hurt from him.

Sam stood between him and the door as he turned, shotgun held across his chest and Dean stopped, tipped his head back a little to look at his brother in the eye. The quiet voice that had been raging in the back of his head screamed once more; I must be crazy. Going out there, alone, no back up? They'll catch me again. They'll rip me apart. Again.

He shut it out, drowned it in remembering the first time he'd realized he had to look up at his baby brother, the odd burst of indignation, pride, irritation and fear that had swollen tight against his ribs for a moment. The younger man shoved the shotgun at him, waited for his fingers to close around it before he tugged it a little, one last warning and Dean pushed gently on the gun, knocking the stock against Sam's hip before twisting it free.

He could feel them watching him from the corner, ignored them, divided his attention between the window and Sam at the door, waiting for his nod. He gave it and the younger man eased open the door, leaving his hands free on the gun as he slipped through the narrow space and tried not to feel like the last man on earth as he listened to the lock snick closed behind him.

The street was as empty now as it had been that morning, the steady grate of howling that had dragged him awake snapping off as soon as the door shut and his dry swallow was loud in the sudden hush.

"This is a bad idea," he mumbled, one thumb absently slipping up to check the safety on the shotgun as he eased along the covered frontage of the motel building.

Unusually for them, they'd stopped yesterday at a place more or less in the middle of town, the normal Winchester caution overridden by weariness. The parking lot sat between the main building and the street, an empty expanse of dusty concrete, the Impala tucked into one corner by their room, a battered red pick-up on the far side and a new-looking Chevy over by the office.

The hunter kept his back to the wall, not quite pressed against it to keep the noise of his jacket brushing the fake-stucco to a minimum. His boots rolled silently over the boards, skin crawling under the weight of the quiet as he edged his way to the first door, dropped one hand to the knob, twisted and pushed the battered wood open an inch.

The smell hit him instantly and he gagged, twisting his face down into his shoulder, squinting as he pulled the door closed again.

"Goddammit."

He took a few moments to breathe in the smell of cotton and canvas and self; some flowery soap because it had been Sam's turn to do the last grocery run, oil and warm metal from the guns and the Impala. Sometimes he thought that smell was ground into him, worn so deep no amount of scrubbing could ever get it out. Sometimes he didn't even mind.

Steadier, he crept along the walkway to the next door, standing open and he skated his fingers over the splintered lock, torn clean out of the wood. His lip curled a little, anger bubbling hot in his throat as he took a step out into the parking lot, scanned the row of doors, saw them all shattered or bloodstained or both.

"Goddammit."

The hunter broke into a jog, shotgun held up against his chest like a shield between him and the town he already knew was empty. Crouching a little as he swung out of the parking lot, suddenly feeling exposed on the street he slowed to a steady pace, eating up the yards of streets, measuring them by the doors he slipped through, the Rorschach patterns of viscera and gore on the walls inside, slowly turning black as the sun arced across the sky and the light burned crimson and bloody over his hands.

A/N: Next week, I may actually manage to post at the weekend...