Idea…so what would have happened if Osiris had taken Dean's tongue in episode 'Defending your Life' From Season 7.

Supernatural does not belong to me, although I wish it did. I am simply playing Kirpke's sandbox for a bit. All rights and ownership are the property of Kripke and the CW network. I am not making any money from this; it is for my own personal pleasure.

Please Review: They help shape the story. I do not have a Beta, all mistakes are mine...and unintentional.

This chapter contains very graphic imagery throughout, don't like...don't read. Could have a slightly AU feel to it, if you squint.

Not Slash.

Chapter 6

Death and Dying

The first thing Dean noticed was that he was walking behind several shadows. The shadows of three people, the second thing that he noticed was the fear…the intense fear that he wouldn't make it back alive. That this would be the last time he was going to ever be okay.

This was the place where he would die.

The air was acrid and a dingy grey color stained the mid-morning sky, the street was covered with dust and smelled of sulfur and blood. He watched as the shadows moved stealthily, obviously trying to avoid detection…they failed. A slender young woman with dark brown hair stepped out of the shadow of the building, her eyes were blazing with shiny black irises she smiled at them, causing each of them to halt and Dean's fear to ramp up as he recognized the woman…she was a demon.

She threatened them and told them that they would lose, that there was nothing that they could do to stop the inevitable future. It had been set into motion when the universe was conceived. They were all simply pawns…predestined to play certain roles. She smiled and patted something next to her…hell hound. His mind supplied rationally and then his own memories of being ripped apart by a hell hound electrified his brain with a fear so bone deep that he was barely able to remain on his feet. The shadows turned and motioned for him to run; he took off at a sprint, shifting the shotgun into a better position. Dean heard one of the people behind him fall, and then the report of another shotgun as one of the shadows turned and fired on the invisible demon bitches. His fear shot up another notch, and he felt his heart stutter and scream a silent 'NO!' as he turned and ran back, leaning down to help the shadow to their feet. His own shotgun firing several times before he felt the razor sharp claws tear into his left side. Four bloody ragged wounds appeared in long gashes along his side. He screamed as the white hot agony spread through his body and the blood spilled from his stomach soaking into the ground. His head fell back in silent acceptance of his fate, better him than the shadow. He had always felt that way...he had wanted something more with one of the shadows...he wasn't sure which one and he wasn't sure what exactly he wanted...he simply knew that it could have been more.

Suddenly he was being picked up in strong arms, his body twisting as the fiery pain jolted through his ribs, his hand clasping against the slippery organs that were threatening to spill onto the dusty ground. Dean's other hand clutched the shotgun tightly to his chest and bit his lips hard enough to split his lower lip, blood instantly spurting into his mouth as he tried to hold back the cries of pain. The shadow was saying something to him, telling him that he would be okay, that they were going to get out here and he would live. He wanted to laugh; he felt the hysteria bubbling up inside him…Dean knew that he wouldn't be making it out of here. He groaned as they found an empty building and rushed inside, he was set down against a wooden counter, his legs no longer functioning as he leaned against the particle board. The pain radiating through his body as waves of agony crashed into his joints and shifted between his ribs with every breath. And the fear and the loneliness that was spreading through his heart like a sickness was all encompassing.

Dean felt an irrational terror for one of the shadows in particular, and he felt something else too…love. It was stronger than the other emotions pulsing through his system, it was warm and bright and…unconditional. Dean's thoughts snapped back to his own memories as he saw himself lean down and kiss Jo as she took the trigger from him. He saw it as though he was watching from a great distance, he felt his brain give in to the fact that she would die here and that he shouldn't have brought her here in the first place. It was his fault, he had unconsciously used her affection for him to his own advantage and once again someone else had paid the ultimate price. Just like she had nearly paid an ultimate price on that first hunt…the one that he should never have let her come on. His heart seized on the knowledge…his fault.

Suddenly he felt his thoughts shift violently back to the floor, he was again sitting there. There was warmth and an odd kind of numbness flowing through his chest. The blood was still oozing through the makeshift bandages on his side, they were holding his intestines in with a blood soaked ace wrap. And then….he felt himself slip away.

XXXX

Sam watched as the wounds healed again and again, his fear for his brother's life growing exponentially. He reached down and absently rubbed the scar on his left hand in an attempt to ground himself, his eyes flickering from Dean to the window and back to Dean again. His brother was lying quietly for the moment, his body healing from yet another death. The bed he was lying on looked like something out a horror movie, blood staining the sheets and having long since soaked into the mattress, ruining it. Some of them Sam recognized, he knew that the first one that he had seen had been Jo Harvells and the second had been his own; after an insane and terrifying abduction that had led to one horrible rainy cold…dark night in Cold Oak, the one that had irrevocably altered their lives. The third death, he still had yet to figure out...but knowing Dean, it could be just about anyone that he had failed to save over a lifetime of hunting. There had been one other time that Sam's life had been shifted in a new direction and that was on the night of November 2nd 1982, when Azazel had walked into his nursery and bled into his mouth.

'You know you can't save your brother…nothing you do is going to change that...and deep down he knows it too.' The tricksters voice resounded inside his skull and then shifted to Lucifer's as Sam tried desperately to ignore it. 'Make you think that you're out…and then pull the rug out. You never left Sam…you're still with me…in the cage…you're my bunkmate...my little bitch...in every sense of the word...' Sam's mind was cracking with the onslaught of memories…

The night that his mother had lost her life, burning to death on the ceiling of his nursery, her mouth opened in a silent scream as she died, had been one that Sam had carried inside him for all these years. It was one death that while his rational mind knew he couldn't not have prevented, his heart refused to believe it, had he never been born, none of this would have happened. Sam's thoughts were looping around and around, coming back to his mother…Dean's sacrifice…his callous disregard of that sacrifice when he chose Ruby...started the Apocalypse...and ultimately sacrificed his own soul for humanity. All the things that Sam had thought that he no longer felt guilty for, came slamming into his unprepared mind and these thoughts, these memories were bringing him to his knees, his hands flying to his temples as pain shot through his head. The last time he had felt this sort of pain was when he was still having the visions, images forced into his mind that he had no hope of controlling.

Sam's breath caught in his chest as the pain started to slowing recede and he fell to his hands and knees, trying desperately to simply breathe. Eventually he was able to control it enough to sit up and cast his red-rimmed eyes back in the direction of his brother, still lying on the bed…silent. How could he have thought that he could escape the guilt of his past as easily as he had…hell? Yeah right, like that was enough to pardon the sins of his past. He had thought that he'd accepted and to some extent been forgiven for his role in…life...

Sam's eyes were drawn back his big brothers form and he leaned forward as he saw something flicker across Dean's skin…like iridescent blue flame. Suddenly Dean's mouth was opened, along with his eyes and Sam watched helplessly as the blue fire engulfed his brother's form. And then the worst thing that Sam could ever have imagined happened…his brother started to burn.

TBC…

Author's Note: Short Chapter I know, but I am still working on the next one and I thought that I would go ahead and post this little 'snippet' for you guys. Like I said this is going to get very dark…although Dean will be returned none the worse for wear…after a while. I may end up changing the rating because of that…

Please Review, Keeps me motivated.