A/N: Hey y'all! Figured I would let you all have this chapter early in the spirit of Thanksgivingsmas. Many thanks to my beta, Pickwick12, Empress of Elucidation and Lord High Comma Mage, without whom this fic would still be mouldering . . .

He parked the truck behind a guard-shed and took stock of his available weapons. Sam's old 9mm and the box of ammo he always kept in the glove compartment. The silver knife under the wheel-well. The capsule of salt and the bottle of holy water in the side console. He pocketed the knife and loaded the gun, but left the capsule and bottle where they were. Sometimes evil was just the flesh-and-blood human kind.

Though, he had to admit, every time he'd gone up against humans instead of his usual supernatural prey he managed to get his ass handed to him. Every. Single. Time.

The sun's rays scattered as it dipped below the treeline to the west, creating a golden haze in the dust that the wind lifted from the fields and carried between the abandoned buildings. Everything smelled of rust and stale lager, bringing to Dean's mind the first beer he'd ever consumed – age ten, ducked down between two eviscerated Fords in Bobby's yard. Sam had laughed at him when he'd made a face and choked after gulping down a mouthful of the stolen Budweiser. Then, of course, he'd run to tell Dad that "Dean couldn't stop coughing." Little bastard, even at six.

The memory and the isolation of the place – the wind lashing at derelict walls as the sun gave up and left the roofs with one last ruby-red kiss – reached into his stomach and matched the loneliness he'd hidden there. He could feel the emptiness at his back where his brother should've been standing, shotgun in hand. Feel it like a goddamn hole in his chest. The day had done nothing but pick at the scab he thought he'd been so careful to let heal over the past month – but wandering through the dust-worn lots with his gun in his hand and no one behind him had torn it away completely. It felt worse than bleeding to death.

He ducked between two half-demolished sheds at the back of the property, and, rounding the corner, came upon Walt's ugly red van. The side-door was open, and a meagre but distinct blood trail lead from there across the yard towards one of the main warehouses.

Dean followed the tell-tale red splotches into a maze of abandoned beer casks under an overhang, resenting the amount of concentration it was requiring not to cough and give himself away. The sudden change in lighting stopped him, as the trail disappeared and his aching eyes readjusted. When he could see more than swirling darkness he looked back down at his feet – but there was no sign of blood past where he was standing. The realisation that his concussed brain had missed something important hit just in time for him to turn around into Walt's hunting knife. Pain shredded past his ribs, forcing his breath from his body in a pathetic grunt.

"Looking for me, Winchester?" Walt hissed, yanking the knife out and slashing at Dean's right hand, causing him to drop his gun.

One month. One fucking month and everything Dad taught you goes to fucking hell. Couldn't even get your goddamn gun up in time.

Dean ducked Walt's next attack and tackled him into the pile of empty aluminium casks. Hard metal edges bit into his back as the casks fell. One came down on Walt's hand and he dropped his knife. Dean's fist found Walt's face a couple times, but soon enough his opponent's hand had found his throat. Black stars popped in front of his eyes as Walt rolled on top of him.

"Whaddaya think, Dean? Will you be coming back a second time? 'Cause something tells me . . ." Walt drew a hand back and smashed a unyielding fist into his cheekbone. ". . . Heaven." Another blow connected with his temple. "Doesn't." Dean couldn't breathe, couldn't see. "Need you." Dadsamcasanybodymakeitstop. "Anymore."

Dean jammed a stiffened hand into Walt's throat and gasped in enough air to power a second jab at his eyes. The hold on his throat broke and Dean kneed his opponent in the groin and flipped him over into a pile of barrels.

"Heaven can kiss my ass, you dick," he growled, struggling to his feet. "I'm not finished yet." Dean scrambled among the casks, searching for his gun before Walt recovered himself.

"Did you really think," Dean said, kicking a cask in the direction of Walt's writhing form, "that you could blow away my little brother in front of me and then blow up my one chance of seeing him again – not to mention torturing that kid, yeah, let's put that one down in the Bright Ideas Hall of Fame – and then skate right past me? I mean . . ." Dean spotted the 9mm and snatched it up, sliding back the chamber as he pointed it in Walt's direction. "I mean, I've made some shit decisions in the past, we all know it, but you know what all I've learned from that?" He took aim at Walt's center-mass and breathed out slowly. "Ideas have consequences."

He fired just as Walt rolled and came up with a shot of his own. Walt's bullet went wide, pinging off cask-sides and sending two more columns crashing to the ground. Dean didn't know whether his had found it's mark, but Walt was still firing so it didn't much matter either way. Dean wasted two more rounds before deciding that he needed to find better cover. He ducked around the scattered, rolling casks, firing blindly over his shoulder. The vicious buzzing past his ears from time to time told him that he wasn't moving nearly as fast or as gracefully as was healthy, but he knew that the fact that the bullets kept missing meant his opponent wasn't in great shape either.

He finally reached shelter around the corner of another warehouse as Walt ran out of ammunition. Dean listened to him reload as he checked his own clip – 4 shots left.

"What happened to Tweedle-dum, Walt?" He leaned out to try and get a shot but the other hunter was still well-hidden. "He bleeding out in a warehouse somewhere? Don't you want a chance to say goodbye? You know, like the chance you gave Sam & me?"

A bullet pinged off a pipe above his head. "Come on, Walt, you're telling me you've been a hunter since I was a kid and you still can't hit the broad side of a brewery? No wonder Dad only worked with you once."

Walt let out a harsh laugh that turned into a coughing fit. So - Dean had been on-target at least once.

"You know," he yelled when he got the cough under control, "I remember that hunt going south for one reason, and one reason only – your dad bringing along a worthless, pimply-nosed tweenager named Dean."

"I didn't go on that hunt. But man I loved hearing the story – my dad could get downright comical describing you two idiots."

"You don't remember going on that hunt. And boy, you are lucky you don't – cause watching yer insides get ripped out by a Black Dog, ooo-ee! Still gives me nightmares and I wish the monster had finished the job!"

Dean frowned. Truth is, it's hard to remember your adolescence 15 years down the road, especially when your formative years were one long, blurred string of spirits, shotguns and cheap motels. But he was pretty sure he'd remember almost dying, especially on a hunt that had become one of his father's favorite stories to tell when he'd had a shot too many.

Truth was, after making a life out of cheating death, Dean didn't really want to know the truth.

"We gonna sit down and have a heart to heart or are you gonna give me something to shoot at?"

"He doesn't need to," came a voice from behind him. Dean turned and fired three wild shots in Roy's direction before a slug from his own Colt 1911-1A buried itself in his chest.

On the one hand, Dean had always assumed it would end like this – cornered, bleeding, going over all the choices that could have prevented the present circumstances if only he hadn't been such a blind idiot. On the other, he had always assumed that no matter what crap went down in the end, Sam would somehow be there next to him. No matter what he had faced. No matter how acquainted he had become with the smell of death as it approached . . . Dean had never quite been ready to die alone.

"You're not alone, Dean."

"Yeah, I am, Sammy. You're in the cage. I'm dying, plugged with my own gun. Probably gonna be buried under a pile of empty beer kegs. Typical." Dean turned his bloodied face towards his brother – Sam's hair was short. He was wearing the gray t-shirt and jacket he'd been wearing that night in Stanford, 5 years before. "You're just a wish. That's all . . . Your hair ain't even the right length. God, my brain is messed up."

"Well, you do have a concussion . . ."

"Fuck, even my subconscious is a smart-ass."

"So, this is it? You're just . . . giving up?"

Dean drew a slow, harsh breath. The fact he was somehow talking to his dead brother in a subconscious netherland hadn't lessened the crushing pain in his ribs & head. His lungs felt like they were filled with sand. His heart was struggling, flopping around in his chest like a dying fish.

"'M so tired, Sammy."

"Dean. Stop it. You can't just quit." Subconscious Sam grabbed the collar of Dean's jacket and shook him as his eyes drifted closed. "Dean, you're not done. You CAN'T JUST LEAVE ME HERE."

Dean wasn't sure, but he thought he could smell burning flesh. His brother's face seemed to crack along its edges with flame.

"SAMMY!"

Dean's eyes shot open, his dream-fueled adrenaline punching him upright before his body could voice its own opinion. The resulting pain in his ribs and chest slammed him back to the ground with a frustrated groan.

"Fuck it, kid, what is it with you and your brother?"

He turned his head. Roy was sitting against the wall of the warehouse, bloodied hands pressed against a wound in his stomach, cigarette hanging out of his mouth. His – Dean's – gun lay in the dirt next to him. Sam's gun was still in Dean's hand.

"You've still got a bullet left, I checked," said Roy, throwing the cigarette away.

Dean coughed, lightly fingering the trigger. "That an . . . invitation?"

"Maybe."

"Walt's dead?"

Roy spat blood into the dirt next to him and closed his eyes. "Yep."

Dean thought about it. He thought about Seth and his screams and the way they mingled in his memory with the nightmares he had about Sam every single night. He thought about the Codex and the pinprick of hope it afforded him, floating off into the sky with the rest of Holden's place - the pinprick now a spike nailing him to the ground like some kind of trapped insect. He thought about promises made long ago and the sound of a shotgun shell entering the chamber and the road through heaven and the smell of a garden where no god walked.

"Why didn't you just kill me?"

The other hunter shook his head and turned a red-tinged smile in Dean's direction. "Goddamit, boy, you think just 'cause I . . . followed that mouth-breather around means I ever wanted any of this on my conscience? We was just like you once, me an' Walt. Grew up . . . chasin' Rougarou through the Ozarks. Walt'd saved my life, and I his, a dozen times before you was even out of diapers. Fuck if it weren't fer . . . me an' Walt, you and your daddy'd been worm-food years ago . . ." Roy took in a sharp, shallow breath and closed his eyes. Blood spilled past his fingers and pooled black into the red dirt around him.

"Yeah. Walt . . . mentioned that." Dean shuddered, the cold from the ground reaching into his bones as he tried to recall the supposed rescue.

"Shit, son, he walked 5 miles holding your innards inside you like you was a leaky keg . . . me draggin' your daddy behind him. Lucky that conjure woman was feelin' so mighty generous or you'da died right there in that swamp. Her spell was a . . . bit strong-like . . . ruined your memory for a few months, so your dad said . . . Bastard blamed us for the whole thing, of course." He fell into a coughing fit that made Dean's gutted ribs ache more just listening. "So . . . Don't you think fer a minute . . ." Roy's voice was barely a whisper, but Dean recognized the determination in his eyes – the resolve of a man with only one last mark to leave on the earth. "Don't you think that what we did back . . . back at the Econo Lodge was easy. We was tryin' to save the world . . . don't you 'nderstand? Just like you an' yer brother . . . Just like you an' . . ."

Roy's head slid to the side, glassy, dead eyes staring up at the first evening stars.

Probably the most angsty thing I've ever tried to write. :P Have mercy on me and leave a review? I welcome honest opinions, even if they're not 100% positive. I promise the next/last chapter will post in the next week or so.