Weapon and the Wound

by gaelicspirit

Set after 3.10, Dream a Little Dream of Me. An unreal heat, an unusual enemy, and an unresolved relationship buffet the brothers through the storm of Dean's deal. No wound is healed without leaving a scar. T for language and adult situations. COMPLETE.

2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer/Spoilers: See chapter 1. Please note: from this point on in the story, there are some scenes that may be considered potentially "racy" as well as some harsher language and scenes. I am keeping the rating at "T" or "PG-13," but ask that you keep this in mind as you read.

a/n: As this will most likely be the last chapter posted prior to the Christmas Holiday, I wanted to wish all of you a Merry Christmas—or the equivalent for the holiday you celebrate—and thank you most sincerely for your support, your encouragement, and your time throughout this past year. I write these stories for myself, yes, but I also search for your thoughts and wait for your feedback with bated breath, smiling again once I've seen your reviews.

Thank you for always giving me something to smile about.

Many thanks and sincere appreciation to my beta, Kelly. She is an angel. Terry, you are my light on so many different levels. Thank you for jerking a knot in my tail when needed, the virtual smack when necessary, and the praise that I know I don't deserve. Sojourner, your friendship has taught me so much about myself, and I love you for it. Thanks for the read, girls.

With that, I give you the 2nd chapter of a story that I've been dying to tell ya'll.

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I have heard the thunder rolling across the sky. I have crossed the waters that keep them miles apart. Now I know the time has come to make a brand new start…

--Evil Wind, Bad Company

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On some level, living as a human contradiction kept him amused.

It offered him the chance to change his mind at will, make excuses for rowdy behavior, justify time spent in somewhat nefarious activities. But, as Dean glanced up at his rear-view mirror and watched his brother's face recede in the background, he felt a quake in his chest on the verge of shimmying out through his lips as a whimper.

He turned on the radio, not caring that the only sound filling the rapidly cooling interior of the Impala was the drone of a commercial. He just needed some other sound around him beside the harsh guffaw of his own conscience. He followed Calhoun's police cruiser back past the police station and down a two-lane highway, absentmindedly worrying his lower lip in thought.

His confession to Sam had taken on a sour taste in the back of his mouth as time tripped on. He'd hoped that he'd feel some relief sharing the burden of his fear. But soon after the words escaped—seemingly of their own free will—they turned to lead and sat at the base of his heart like weights intent on drowning him in guilt and remorse.

Sam's ever-watchful eyes had shimmered with relief; his brother's entire being had relaxed the moment Dean had said, "I don't want to go to Hell."

And in that moment, tension tied a slip knot around his chest, quietly slipping down the length of the mental rope he was sure he'd hang himself from before the year was up. Leaving Sam—even for a moment—felt like falling overboard in the middle of the ocean. But at the same time, he needed to swim or risk being suffocated by the combination of his fear and his brother's worry.

Dean sat forward gingerly, his elbows resting on the edge of his steering wheel as he kept the still-tender flesh of his back from meeting the unyielding bench seat. Calhoun passed a truck stop and Dean glanced to the side, Sam's uncharacteristic warning about the Impala pressing on his memory. Shaking his head to clear it, he continued on, turning the volume of the radio up when Pearl Jam's Black beat back the silence.

Anything, man, he groaned internally. Anything but what I'm hearing…

You're gonna die, Dean… and this is what you're going to become.

Dean turned the music up louder. Enough so that he felt his body shake from the inside out with the thunder of the bass.

"Oh, and twistin' thoughts that spin round my head. I'm spinning, oh, I'm spinning. How quick the sun can drop away, and now my bitter hands cradle the broken glass of what was everything. All the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything..."

Dean's eyes caught on a gauge in the Chevy's dash. The unseasonable, oppressive heat was taking its toll on the car's refurbished engine. Frowning, Dean switched off the air conditioning and rolled down the windows. Sweat immediately gathered along his hairline and upper lip, working a path down the valley in his back as his muscles tightened.

He wanted desperately to shrug out of the black suit coat, but knew that it was essentially the only thing keeping the filter of belief between his lie and the rest of the world. As he continued to follow Calhoun into the town of Toby, he heard the unmistakable rumble of a motorcycle approaching even over the roar of Eddie Vedder's pained growl.

Watching with mild curiosity as the gray and red Indian sped past him, followed closely by a well-used, dusty red Ford F-150, Dean felt a spark of remembrance ignite in the back of his mind. His attention was pulled forward once more as Calhoun turned into a seemingly empty lot, pulled up to a stop, and turned off the sirens that Dean had almost forgotten were on. Dean followed suit, turning off the radio before shutting down the Impala.

The dirt lot was flanked by large signs declaring it for sale, all 58 acres, for the tidy sum of $175,000. Dean took this in as he scanned the surroundings carefully, his father's training as much a part of him now as the natural act of breathing. Know your territory, know your enemy, but most importantly, know your exits.

The backside of several houses faced the lot, and Dean could see the makeshift outline of a sandlot ball diamond scratched in the earth. Grabbing his intricately-detailed, yet no-less fake FBI badge, he stepped from the car and rolled his shoulders carefully, pulling the material from the seeping wounds as best he could without drawing attention to himself.

"Game on," he whispered, heading toward the square-jawed deputy.

"Ross isn't joining us?" Dean asked as Calhoun lifted the yellow crime scene tape and held it for Dean to duck under.

Calhoun shrugged. "Someone's gotta hold down the fort, yeah?"

"Guess so," Dean replied, eyes tracking to the carefully positioned bodies. His brows pulled close and he caught his lower lip between his teeth, forcing himself to pause for a moment before commenting. "I don't think this is your crime scene, man."

Calhoun's neck actually popped as he whipped his head to the side to stare at Dean. "What?"

Dean stepped forward, indicating the specifically placed poles—no higher than the top of the victim's heads—just far enough apart that the victims could clearly see one another, but not touch.

"Any reason two random poles would be stuck in the ground in the middle of a vacant lot?"

Calhoun removed his hat and scratched his hairline. "Uh, no."

"Well, the killer obviously put them here," said a voice to their left.

Dean glanced up to see a slim man with large, thick glasses, a thin, twitchy mustache, and a navy blue wind breaker with the words Medical Examiner stitched on the right side. When the man stopped just shy of the bodies and regarded Dean and Calhoun, his nose wrinkling with obvious distaste, Dean bit the inside of his cheek.

"Just like with every other crime scene," the mousey man finished.

"Before or after he killed them?" Dean pointed out. "Those houses can't be more than 100 yards away," he continued, jerking his head to the side. "Don't you think they might've heard two people getting cut up?"

"One," the Medical Examiner corrected him. "And who knows. People hear a lot of things they don't report."

Dean lifted a brow, then stepped even closer to the bodies, his head tilted in thought. "Sounds like you speak from experience, Mr…."

"Carter. Adam Carter. And yes," Carter nodded brusquely. "I do speak from experience. Now that we've covered me, who are you and what are you doing here?"

"Carter, this is Agent Ford from the FBI. He's investigating these murders," Calhoun informed him.

Carter frowned, dropping his pack and bending down to select two latex gloves from a small box. Dean's hands began to sweat even more at the thought of having yet another layer covering him in this heat.

"FBI comes out to Toby? After two deaths?" Carter's doubt was apparent.

"Actually, we came out to Brookville," Dean said, squatting down next to the little man and cautiously regarding the bodies. He tried in vain to ignore the dull hum of gathering flies. "And it's not just been two deaths, has it?"

Carter looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"

"This all happened fifteen years ago, didn't it?" Dean asked. "Kind of a strange little coincidence isn't it?"

"You part of some special FBI squad or something?" Carter asked, pulling out a thermometer.

Dean's answering grin didn't meet his eyes. "You could say that."

He straightened as Carter began to focus on his job, assessing approximate time of death, removing the bodies from their bound positions against the posts, bagging the hands and feet for any residual evidence.

The bodies were tied to the posts at the wrists, a gag in the mouth of the man, the woman's chin on her chest. Dean could see slash marks along the woman's legs along the inside of her thighs, stopping just short of her groin, then continuing up her belly and along her breasts. He tore his eyes from her, swallowing the bile that rose at the sight of such targeted cruelty.

Walking around the area carefully, Dean found himself glancing to his left where Sam so often was, taking notes and nodding seriously. He spared himself an internal eye-roll and noted the lack of blood on the ground in direct contradiction to the amount of blood on the male victim.

"So, one victim, in this case the woman, is cut," Dean muttered loud enough that Carter could hear. "And the other victim—the dude—bleeds to death."

"Now I see why they sent you," Carter replied, sarcasm coating each word. "What would we have done without your astute observation?"

Dean ignored him. "Is the blood on the victim their own?"

Calhoun removed his hat in what Dean was starting to recognize as a nervous gesture. "Come again?"

"Are they actually bleeding? Or is it the blood from the one that was cut?" Dean clarified.

Carter sank back on his heels. "You're suggesting… that the killer cut the woman up, saturated the man with her blood, and then drug them both out here to stake out until we found them?"

Dean shrugged. "Is that any more unbelievable than bleeding from no apparent wounds?"

Carter looked up at Calhoun. "Did you give him the autopsy report?"

"I gave it to his partner."

"Why isn't your partner here, then?" Carter asked Dean.

"None of your damn business, that's why," Dean snapped. "What am I missing?"

"Well, for one, Mr. F.B. I. Agent," Carter drawled. "The bloody victim's cause of death is exsanguination. As in bleeding to death."

"I know what it means," Dean growled. "What about the other one?"

At that, Carter sighed, looking at the woman's slumped form. "Shock. Or so it seems. There's no indication of any drug used, or other torture aside from the myriad of cuts on the body. It's simply as if the heart… stopped."

"Because it was willed to…" Dean said softly, staring at the tragic forms splayed out before him.

"What was that?" Carter looked at him over his shoulder.

"Nothing," Dean shook his head and took a physical step back. He looked up at Calhoun. "You have any idea how the first two victims were connected?"

Calhoun shook his head. "We're still looking into it."

"Well, look faster, man," Dean ordered. "The more you know about how he's choosing them, the more you're gonna be able to anticipate his next move."

"I know," Calhoun whined. "I've just never… dealt with this stuff before."

"What, death?" Dean scoffed. "You picked the wrong line of work, dude."

"No," Calhoun scratched at his hairline. "Occult. Black magic."

Dean caught Carter's flinch out of the corner of his eye as he looked at Calhoun. "Yeah, you said that before. What makes you think this has to do with magic?"

Calhoun shrugged. "Ross, mostly. Guess that's what it all came down to last time."

Dean nodded, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "Would certainly explain this damn heat," he muttered.

"It would?" Calhoun asked, eager for some sort of plausible explanation for the unreality around him.

Dean waved a dismissive hand at him. "Forget it," he sighed. "Listen, I'm gonna need all you two get on these deaths, and the two from earlier in the week. And if you still have those other bodies on ice, I'm gonna need to see them, too."

"They're back in Brookville," Calhoun said.

"Where are these two going?" Dean asked, waggling his hand between the two bodies without actually looking at them.

"Brookville," Calhoun and Carter replied in unison.

"That rail car thing you put us up in have a phone?" Dean asked.

Calhoun nodded.

"You call me as soon as you have them back in Brookville," Dean ordered, pointing his index finger at the officer and turning from the grisly scene to head back toward his car. "And I want to talk to Ross!" He yelled over his shoulder.

"Hey!" Calhoun called after him. "Where are you going?"

Dean looked back over his shoulder just as the shrill whistle of a train cut the air. "Back to my partner," he said. "We've got work to do."

He paused at the driver's side door and shrugged from his heavy jacket, hissing as he was forced to roll his back and shoulder muscles to free his arms from the sleeves. Tugging his tie free, he unbuttoned the top button of his white shirt.

"Oh, hell with it," he muttered, glancing quickly to his left where the officer and coroner were still working on the crime scene. It was hotter than hell. No one should be expected to wear a freakin' tie. He jerked it off and threw it and the jacket into the back seat.

Sinking onto the heat-softened leather of the Impala's seat, he realized he could actually see the mirage of shimmering air along the dashboard. He pulled the sleeve of his shirt over his hand as he gripped the hot keys and turned on the engine. The Impala shuddered slightly, causing Dean to hold his breath in worry, then caught and rumbled to life.

"Atta girl," Dean encouraged, throwing the gear into reverse and slamming the accelerator to the floor.

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"Quit blaming yourself."

The order was accompanied by the splash of ice water as a red plastic glass was clumped down in front of her.

"I trusted the bastard," Brenna sighed. "And he stood us up."

"I'm not talking about that Griffin guy," Virge revealed, sitting down across from her in the red vinyl booth, his work-worn hands meeting at the fingertips to make a steeple. "I'm talking about those people in Toby."

Brenna sat back, her fingers finding a tear in the vinyl seat and digging in, pulling the white foam padding from the worn-out depths. "I don't want to talk about that."

Virge tipped his fingers back in a shrug. "What if I don't care?" he challenged. "What if I want to know what you don't want to say?"

Brenna looked at him, pulling him in. She wanted to touch him, ached to see inside someone once more. But she was walking wounded, seeing the world with as much insight as anyone else. She felt as if she were wrapped in cotton, unable to feel anything, unable to truly take a breath.

"What?" Virge asked suddenly.

"Nothing," Brenna pulled her eyes away, resting them on the empty stretch of road that waited for her on the other side of the glass.

"You were… what were you looking for just then, Brenna?" Virge asked.

She could never deny the sexy draw of his voice. If she closed her eyes and simply listened to him talk, she could image herself rolling into his waiting arms and allowing him to care for her as she knew he so wanted to.

But she kept her eyes wide open, thirsty for what she could no longer see.

"You wouldn't understand," she informed him. "I've tried to explain it before and you… you don't get it, Virge."

"Well, try again," Virgil prompted. "I'll listen harder."

Brenna huffed out a laugh, leaning forward and pressing her hands flat on the table top. Her right hand landed in the sweat from the glass, slipping slightly before she found a grip. "It's not you, Sinatra," she said with a sad half-grin twisting the side of her face into a mask of acceptance. "It's me, okay? I'm… broken."

"It's this… this druid thing, right?"

Brenna nodded, leaning as close as she could to the edge of the table, her eyes wide as she searched his cobalt gaze. "Right. The druid thing. Hundreds of years of heritage and power. Hundreds of years of knowledge and sight. Hundreds of years of blood and tears and war and peace and love and loss and history and it's all fuckin' gone."

As she spoke her voice became lower, raspy, sandpaper wearing down her throat with the confession of reality.

To his credit, Virgil didn't flinch away from the raw pain in her words. He simply sat and watched and listened. She saw him fighting to understand, wanting to be the one who made it better for her. But there was only one person who could fix this—and her only lead to that person had left her standing on the outskirts of an abandoned lot staring at death.

"Why is it gone?" Virgil asked softly, not letting her look away. He dodged his head to catch her eyes once more. "I mean… have you ever thought that maybe… maybe this is what was supposed to happen? That you had that… that gift for a purpose. A reason. For just a little while and then—"

"But it wasn't just a little while," Brenna said, sitting back and covering her face with her hands, feeling the wet trail from the ice water track down the side of her face. "It was my whole life. And then… Declan died, and Dean left and…"

"And you changed," Virgil said.

"Yeah." Brenna dropped her hands. "Yeah, I changed. I used to be able to see people, Virge. I could touch you and know you from the inside out. I could look at you and know in a breath if you were lying to me. I… I felt people shimmering all around me…"

Virge was silent, waiting. Brenna swallowed, trying to will the lump in her throat to dissolve and the burning in her eyes to abate. She would not cry in front of him. Not him. Not the man who loved her with his eyes even as he resisted the obvious desire to touch her. Not the man who had shadowed her relentlessly through these months of searching for a place to belong, a ground.

"When I started to dream about this guy," Brenna looked out through the window once more, "I thought it was a warning. That my vision had returned and I was seeing something dark inside of me. Or… you, maybe."

"Me?" Virgil pulled back, pressing against the red seat with a creak of plastic.

"You were the only one close enough to me when the dreams started." Brenna said, not looking back at him. "And, sorry, but I don't know everything about you."

"Not for lack of me trying," Virge muttered.

Brenna ignored him.

"There was always so much blood and these weird flashes of light—took me awhile to realize it was the blade of a knife reflecting. And this voice, constant, like a song or a chant." She looked down at her hands laying open in her lap, palms up and exposed, almost in supplication to her own will. "I didn't really get that it was a message… a warning… until we heard about Griffin from that Ellen lady."

Virgil sighed, and Brenna felt the table tremble slightly as he dropped his head in his hands. She looked at the top of his red hat, feeling her chest tighten with an unnamed, unidentified need. She curled her fingers in against the palms of her hands, squeezing her fists tight enough to leave crescent-shaped indentions on her own flesh.

How can you want someone and loathe someone so much inside of the same heartbeat? She wondered. Virgil was now a constant. A guardian. A protector. He loved her, she knew. Completely without complete understanding. And she almost hated him for it.

"I let those people in Toby die," she said softly.

"Stop it, Bren," Virge said, his voice echoing softly against the table.

"I saw it, I knew it was going to happen," she kept her eyes on the top of his head, willing him to look up, hoping she could push him far enough that he'd stand up and walk away. "I almost wanted it to happen in a way… then maybe I could find the owner of that kni—"

"I said stop, for Christ's sake!" Virgil snapped, bringing his head up sharply, his eyes hot. "You can push all you want, you stubborn bitch, but I made a promise. I'm not walking away from you, from this. Somewhere in that screwed up head of yours, I gotta believe you know that. I gotta believe…"

With that, Virgil stood from the far corner booth they occupied inside the truck stop's diner and headed toward the other side of the truck stop, pushing through the glass doors that separated the diner from the shop. Brenna watched him go, then slid her eyes back toward the road. As she watched, a black Chevy blazed past the truck stop. She blinked slowly, tiredly, thinking of Virgil.

"You'll walk away," she quietly predicted. "One day, you'll walk away."

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A subtle tremble through her large, black body was his first indication that something was wrong. It felt like an intake of air that shuddered out like a quake of fear. Frowning, he tightened his grip and focused his eyes on her dash, checking for more warning signs.

His shirt clung to the muscled contours of his chest and back, sticking with painful clarity to the seeping wounds left behind as a reminder of just how much his father cared. He felt a bead of sweat follow a familiar path down the side of his face, shimmying when it hit the scruff of beard along his jaw.

When the steam filtered like curling tendrils of languid thought before his eyes, Dean pounded his fist against the hard metal beneath his fingers.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean felt his heart flinch as his voice bounced around the interior of the oddly-quiet Impala.

The oppressive heat, a heavy blanket of humidity lying over the world, had seemed to sap the battery power of the Chevy. In an attempt to keep her going, Dean had turned the radio and the air conditioning off, the windows down, on the return trip from Toby, but the abused machine finally submitted to the elements, spewing steam and fluid through the seams in the hood as though giving up her life's blood.

"Dammit," he growled, looking in his rear-view mirror quickly, then darting his eyes ahead once more. Nothing. No one. Only grass, dirt, and sad, sagging trees. "Well, that's just fuckin' great."

The car limped to the side of the road as Dean pulled as close to the shade of a large tree as he could get. Shutting off the over-heated engine, Dean stepped from the relative protection of the shaded Impala into the intense sunlight. Grabbing his suit jacket from the back seat and wrapping it around his right hand, he moved around to the front of the ticking car and released the lever to raise the hood.

He stumbled back several steps, automatically throwing his hands in front of his face for protection as scalding-hot steam billowed from beneath the hood. Wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, he approached the Impala cautiously, eyes scanning her engine for latent bursts of scalding liquid.

The unseasonable heat should have done more than fray his already raw nerves. If he'd listened to Sam instead of his own pride—instead of running away like a pussy—he would have picked up a gallon of radiator fluid from that truck stop they passed on the way to Toby.

Pulling in a breath through his nose and exhaling it through his lips, he argued silently that he hadn't really planned on being in overheated Pennsylvania on the cusp of winter. Hell, he hadn't planned anything, it seemed, in the last nine months. He was a pinball ricocheting through what was left of his life, hoping to hit a buzzer and not fall through the cracks.

Biting his lip, Dean resisted the overwhelming urge to kick the front tire. Instead he took two bouncing steps back, grabbed an errant stone from the ground near his feet, whirled, and threw it down the empty road with the force of a major-league pitcher. His wounded back pulled tight in protest.

"SON OF A BITCH!"

His frustrated scream was echoed by the startled cry of a circling hawk. It was childish, he knew, but yelling had felt good. Tension burbling in his chest released like a valve over his heart. For good measure, he kicked another rock with the inside of his foot, sending it spiraling down the road.

Sighing, he ran his calloused hands through his short, sweaty hair, then turned to face the Impala.

"I'm sorry, baby," he said softly, feeling her silent disappointment. "I'll be back."

Tossing the now-ruined jacket into the back seat, Dean unbuttoned his suit shirt and slid it from his sweaty arms, the white T-shirt beneath it plastered to his skin. Rolling up the windows, but leaving the hood propped up to cool the engine, he locked the car, tied his extra shirt around his waist, and started the long walk back down the road to the last vestige of civilization he'd seen.

He walked with his head down, the sun beating a tattoo of radiating heat against his exposed neck. The wetness of anger in his mouth began to slowly fade as he watched his feet move forward, replaced by a thick, sticky dryness that began to make his tongue swell.

Hotter than Hell…

A sarcastic laugh tumbled out of him before he could catch it. He squinted down the road to check his progress, then dropped his eyes to keep walking. The skin on the back of his arms began to pull tight as the suns rays burned him.

Wonder how hot Hell actually is, he mused as he walked. Plodded. Left right left right. Dusty boot after dusty boot slipping into his line of sight. Rocks kicked to the side, tufts of gravel dust blossoming up, then dying in his wake.

Maybe Hell is cold. Sam's Dante book says it's cold.

Bobby says Hell could just be a state of mind—separation from God. Pretty damn far from God here… maybe this is Hell.

Nah, Sam's here. No way this is Hell. Hell's definitely a place.

He stumbled on a discarded, flattened soda can, shaking his head a bit as he regained his balance. Tiny white spots shimmered brightly at the corners of his eyes, then faded to be replaced by the surreal setting of landscape drenched in too-bright sunlight.

Yeah, it's a place I'm gonna go. Guess I'll get to see first hand if it's hot or cold. So, I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

He chuckled softly to himself. Laugh and the world laughs with you, right?

Sam had promised him. Promised they'd find a way out of this. And with that promise, Dean's eyes were opened to how hard Sam had been trying all year, how he'd been turning himself inside out to find a solution, literally leaving no stone unturned. An odd chill slid through Dean, even as the suffocating air pressed tight around him.

He would not lose Sam to this deal. No way. He did his job—he took care of Sam, brought him back, saved him. Sam was more important—he meant more to the world, to the greater good. He was needed here. Dean's job was—had always been—to make sure Sam stayed. Safe.

Safe.

Bringing his head up once more hoping to see the truck stop's metallic roof reflecting in the distance, Dean conjured a mental picture of a bank vault. The old-fashioned kind with the multi-pronged door lock. Dropping his eyes after seeing nothing but empty blacktop, he imagined stuffing Sam inside, slamming the door on his protests, spinning the lock.

Situation solved.

Licking his dry lips, he wondered why he never thought to climb inside himself. He was always on the outside, hoping, waiting, trusting, bracing himself for the worst. He reached up and wiped the corners of his mouth with the tip of his index finger and thumb. He hated that white gunk that gathered at the corner of his mouth when he was thirsty.

Shit, how far did I drive? He looked up again. Nothing.

The air was so still he could hear his breath in his throat before it escaped his body. He could hear his heartbeat. He glanced to the left at the tangle of flora. To his right the road shimmered with a mirage of heat. He could very well be the last man on earth.

Sam is out there, you dumbass. The heat is frying your brain.

Reaching up at that thought, he brushed the top of his head. His hair was so hot that he jerked his hand back in surprise. Frowning, he fashioned a long bandana from his extra shirt, tying it around his head. His T-shirt clung to him uncomfortably, but he didn't dare take it off. The pain from peeling away the semi-clotted wounds was not something he wanted to deal with out here on the backside of nowhere. Plus… sunburns were bad.

Sam is waiting for you to get back. So cowboy up and get this handled.

Triggered by his internal pep talk, Dean picked up his pace, shimmers of heat starting to play with his vision. Every moment apart from Sam felt like years. Before Cold Oak, before feeling the odd heaviness of his brother's lifeless body, Dean had moments where he would gladly take a break from his constant companion.

But since The Deal, since the clock started ticking, he hadn't even minded that Sam waited outside in the car for him while he… enjoyed the finer things in life.

Dean grinned at the memory. There was something life-affirming about the feel of a woman. Wetting his lips again with a tongue that now felt two sizes too big for his mouth, Dean thought about seeing Lisa in his dreams. Not simply Lisa, but the idea of a woman's companionship. Stability. Body. Warmth.

For life.

What the hell is wrong with me?

His thoughts had been wandering, the way they always did when he didn't have a path or a mission. Left to his own devices, ideas of a possible—or now impossible future—crowded out the specs of his .45, the feel of his balanced Bowie, the smell of burning fuel and salt.

Burning salt—and the bones they consumed—was not a scent he could easily forget. Yet, thinking about the dream of Lisa, about what she represented…home, family, a life beyond him. A child. A human reflection of his soul out in the world, walking around on its own… it tripped him up. Melted his breath inside his lungs and incinerated rational thought.

Get it together, Dean.

A glint caught his eye. He jerked his head up. The truck stop hovered like an oasis in the distance.

"It's about freakin' time."

He felt as if he'd been walking for hours, but the sun was just as intense as when he started. The heat of his own skin sent a chill racing along his arms, leaving goose bumps behind like breadcrumbs.

He looked down at his hands, noting how fat his fingers suddenly felt. He'd lost track of the distance, the space between here and back there, but his body told him that coupled with the balls-to-the-wall rush of the last several days, a walk without water in the heat of the day had not been wise.

Shuffling steps moved him forward; tiny clouds of dust in the still air heralded his approach. He shook his hands out, trying to release the unusual tension that stretched the skin across the back of them so tight he felt it would crack if he made a fist.

Get there, get fluid, get going.

He nodded at the wisdom of his plan, then paused, dry lips smacking together.

No, wait, scratch that. Get there, get water…and maybe some beef jerky…He smiled groggily. Mmmm beef jerky. Hunter's ambrosia.

Folding his lips down in a thoughtful, drowsy smile, he nodded again. Seriously, is there anything better than meat, dried and packaged? Take it with you anywhere. Could be hunting a werewolf in the woods, feel hungry? Hey, here's some beef jerky!

He rubbed his eyes, feeling them sizzle when he pressed the lids down, sparklers worthy of Independence Day shooting across the dark. Left right left right left…trip…

Open your friggin' eyes, Dean.

And he was there. Trying not to whimper aloud, he crossed the still-empty street, amazed that there were cars parked in the lot in front of the truck stop. He tilted his head. Cars and a motorcycle.

"Huh," he croaked.

He'd seen a motorcycle just like that pass him when he was driving to Toby. Stumbling closer, he brought the small license plate into focus. A silver band surrounded the official numbers. He tilted his head slightly, squinting against the sun's glare. There was a word inscribed on the band. Creideamh.

"Holy shit."

It couldn't be her. There had to be other people in the world who drove a '60's model Indian. It couldn't be Brenna Kavanagh… Could it?

In a dizzying rush of memory, staggering him with the weight of the images, Dean pulled her eyes, her lips, the feel of her skin, the harsh slap of her anger, the fine caress of her touch from somewhere deep inside of him. Somewhere buried under so much rubble he'd thought he'd never dig her out. And didn't know if he wanted to.

"Son of a…"

He turned to the entrance and pushed through the glass doors, the metal bar brand-iron hot from the sun, and felt his knees go weak as the cool air conditioning replaced the stifling humidity. Shaking his stinging hand he pulled off his shirt-turban, using a sleeve to wipe his face. He looked around quickly and saw her at a far booth, her back to him.

Of all the gin joints in all the cities in all the world…

Her hair was longer then when he'd last seen her, and she wore it twisted into a loose reddish-blonde knot fastened with what looked like a pencil stabbed through the mess. He stared hard at the back of her head. He knew it was her.

Knew even before her shoulders stiffened and he heard her coffee mug thunk on the Formica table top. Knew before she turned slightly in the booth, offering him a glimpse of her striking profile. Knew before her unusual eyes hit him like a punch in the gut.

"Son of a bitch," she breathed.

The room seemed to tilt around him and he felt the floor roll. Blinking, he staggered slightly as he headed toward the counter and tried not to beg when he said, "Water. Lots and lots of water."

Someone with coffee-stained fingers stood behind the counter. Dean didn't register if the person were large or small, tall or short, male or female. He simply saw the fingers disappear and reappear, gripping a glass of water. Dean downed the contents without a single intake of breath, slamming it down and ticking his finger at the empty glass.

"Hit me," he rasped.

She hadn't approached him. He could feel her eyes, but she hadn't moved. As he downed another glass, his knees stopped working entirely and he found his back pockets hitting the round-topped stool.

The last time he'd seen her, she had been almost hollow. Her whole world had burned away. Everyone and everything she'd known. And she'd stood in the middle of it, silently building her own wall of protection, figuring out how she was to escape the same fate.

Someday…

She'd said they'd find each other. At the time he'd liked how the illusion of a promise had sounded, and had been broken enough physically to need to hear it. But he hadn't believed, not really.

And he'd forgotten it completely—had almost forgotten her—when his lips met the pliant, cold mouth of a demon.

He drank another glass and was grateful when the liquid was returned without his having to ask. He kept Brenna in his periphery, his entire body tight in the anticipation of her next move.

She seemed to sigh a bit as she stood, balancing herself. He felt her breathe. A chill raced along his arms again, drying the sweat streaks on his back, drawing his damp shirt close to his skin. He didn't turn her way; simply waiting for her to approach had started to liquefy his belly.

"Dean."

He'd always liked the way his name sounded in her voice—like she was tasting it. Even when she was pissed beyond measure, when she said his name, he knew it was safe in her mouth.

"Brenna," he replied, dropping his chin a bit and looking at her from the corners of his eyes. It was a reflexive, protective glance. One he knew brought about a certain reaction in women, and one that kept him just enough away from them that they had to choose to close the gap between them.

She was dressed in jeans, worn through to pale denim on the insides of her thighs, and a gray Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon T-shirt, the rainbow and the prism bending around her breasts. Dean darted his eyes to her hands resting loosely at her waist, thumbs hooked into her empty belt loops.

Damn.

It had been months… months since he'd seen her. So much had happened, so much was pending… and all he wanted to do was drink in her lips. Here. Now.

Her eyes slid quickly over his face and took in his haggard, sweaty appearance. He knew how much she could really see; he knew she could see inside of him if she wanted to. If she touched him, all bets were off. And he wasn't ready for her to know.

"Hot out there," she stated matter-of-factly, her voice slightly rough, as if she'd been screaming.

"You could say that," he replied, tipping the crushed ice from his nearly-empty glass into his mouth, filling the hollow beneath his tongue and letting it melt there.

"Where's Sam," Brenna asked, looking past him. He saw the briefest shadow cross her face and his heart seized. "Is he—"

"He's fine," Dean interrupted. "We're… on a job," he glanced at the scattering of patrons too involved in their own lives to eavesdrop on the conversation between what probably looked like a weathered vagrant and a college student. "I had some supplies to get and I'm heading back toward him."

"On foot?" She raised an eyebrow, her lips quirking.

Dean curled his lips in, enjoying the feel of his cold tongue on the still-warm flesh. "I, uh, had some car trouble."

Her other brow met the arched one in a look of disbelief. "You?"

The way she said the word made him feel like he'd just admitted to kicking a puppy.

"Hey," he frowned, looking at the bottom of his water glass. "It happens."

He felt her finger press against the back of his arm before he could pull away.

"You got some sun," she said softly, leaning close to peer at the back of his neck. "Damn, Dean, your back is a mess! What the hell happened to you?"

He realized as he absorbed her scent that he'd forgotten to breathe for a moment when she touched him. Brenna's touch had always opened him up, left him bare, exposed things he worked all his life to keep hidden. Her grandfather had warned them that her druid past meant that they couldn't lie to her. But for Dean, it had gone deeper than lies. The abilities that fell to her because of her druid origins had striped his mask and shown her the layers of scars that went deeper than the tough outer shell of his skin.

"How did you…" he didn't know how to ask the question.

How did you just touch me without recoiling in fear? How did you not see the Hell that rolls inside me, the Hell that haunts me, the Hell that waits for me?

"You tangle with a cougar or something?" Brenna pressed, ignoring his half-spoken question.

"What?" Dean couldn't seem to pin a clear line of question to the wall of his brain.

"Your back—you have some bloody patches here," Brenna pointed, but didn't touch him again. He realized he was holding himself tense, pulling away from her.

"Oh," Dean looked over his shoulder, unable to see the wounds. "Yeah, I, uh, got hit by a rock-salt landmine."

Brenna shook her head, scanning his face with quiet eyes. "Of course you did."

Dean gratefully drank once more of his refilled water glass. He couldn't seem to get enough. He was bottomless, dry from the inside out. And she was making him thirsty for something water wouldn't quench.

"So… Sam's okay?"

"Yeah," Dean said, and tried to feel as though he wasn't lying. Physically, Sam was fine. Mentally, he was strung out. Emotionally he was abused. But, then again, he was a Winchester. "I gotta get some radiator fluid. Get back to him. "

A strong scent suddenly filled Dean's nostrils, sharp and tangy, like burning incense. Frowning, he glanced over his shoulder, away from Brenna.

"Oh, hey, Virge," Brenna said, greeting the figure who now loomed near them, just about to shut the door that separated the diner from the truck stop shop and showers. "Dean, you remember Virgil, right?"

Dean turned fully on the stool, taking in the sight of the blue-eyed paramedic that Sam had dubbed Sinatra. He was solidly built, dressed in worn jeans and a white T-shirt with the Coca-Cola logo across the chest, a red Dodgers baseball hat on backwards, hiding his lack of hair. His face held the lines of age, but his eyes danced with youth.

"Uh, sure," Dean tipped his chin up. "Hey, man."

Virgil nodded at Dean, his mouth tight. "You coming, Bren?"

"Not just yet."

Virgil narrowed his eyes. "Getting late. Not a lot of sun left."

"Could be a good thing, hot as it is out there," Brenna returned.

Dean felt the quiet conversation that wasn't happening, holding very still as a decision was made, not sure what the choices had been.

"Yeah, well, do what you think is best," Virgil said quietly, pushing his way out through the door and back into the trucker's area.

"Always do," Brenna said softly.

"You're… with… him?" Dean asked hesitantly as he turned back to face her. This close to her, he could see the lines that the sun had drawn around where her shades had protected her large, odd eyes.

Freckles, he thought. Has she always had freckles?

"We're traveling together," she replied, not really answering him.

His belly rolled with a unique heat, one he recognized and usually welcomed. As the warmth traveled lower, he felt alarm bells clang in his ears and launched to his feet, looking for a quick escape.

"Well, okay, listen, I—"

The slow spin of the world caught him off guard and he was forced to grab the counter top or fall forward on his face.

"Whoa!" Brenna stepped forward, grabbing his upper arms. "How long were you out there?"

Her eyes traveled his face, searching. He straightened. There had rarely been a time that he'd been whole around Brenna. Parts of him were always broken. And she seemed destined to try to put him back together.

"'M okay," he breathed.

"Sure you are," Brenna pushed him back on the stool. "Does Sam know you're—"

"Leave Sam out of this!" Dean snapped. "Why do you keep asking about Sam?"

Brenna leaned back on her heels, crossing her arms over her chest. "Because I can't remember a time when you two were separated for a good reason."

Dean stared at her.

"You're part of each other," she shrugged.

"Well," he said, softer this time. "He's fine. But he's gonna start to wonder where the hell I am, so I better get going."

"I'll take you." The words rushed from her as if she was afraid not saying them would leave a hollow between them that nothing else would fill.

"What?" Dean started to stand, but sat back down again quickly. "No."

Brenna lifted an eyebrow. "You're, what, gonna walk back to the Impala?"

"Yeah."

"Dean, you look like you've been rode hard and put away wet," she shook her head.

His mouth went dry. The words hard and wet seemed to slow as her lips parted to release them. He closed his eyes briefly, pulling in a calming breath. He needed more time if he was going to walk back. He needed help if he was going to be coherent enough to keep up with Sam on this hunt once he told his brother about the bodies back in Toby.

"…obviously hurt and I'm not going to just let you walk out of here into that heat," she said sternly, having continued her argument as he folded inside himself, weighing his options.

"Fine."

"Why? Because I—wait, what did you say?" She paused mid-rant.

"I said fine."

"Oh," she blinked. "Well, okay then. Go and get your…" She waved her hand vaguely.

"Radiator fluid."

"Right."

Dean stood carefully, waited for the world to right itself, then stepped away from the counter as Brenna paid her bill. He walked into the truck stop section of the building, ears instantly assaulted by blaring TVs, arcade games, and Muzak piped over the speakers.

What the hell am I doing, getting a ride from her? He wandered the rows filled with oil and engine supplies, eyes searching blankly. This is not the time for distractions. This is not the time for seeing what might happen. This is not the time for—his eyes hit the rows of feminine supplies and condoms. Oh, you've gotta be kidding me…

"Dean."

Dean jerked his head up at the dark rumble of the voice to his left. Sinatra.

"Hey," he greeted simply.

"She's got her own baggage to deal with," Virgil said, his bright blue eyes glittering slightly.

Dean lifted an eyebrow. "You warning me off?"

"I'm just saying," Virgil shrugged.

"You with her, man?" Dean asked Virgil the same question he'd posed to Brenna. He bit the inside of his cheek as Virgil looked away. That was answer enough.

"Just be careful," Virgil said.

"I'm getting a ride and getting back to my brother," Dean said. "Simple as that."

Virgil looked down at his hands, then lifted his eyes to Dean. "With Brenna," he shrugged a shoulder, "nothing's simple."

He walked away, leaving Dean to stare at the rows of condoms. "Son of a bitch," Dean growled, stomping down the aisle to the radiator fluid, grabbing up a jug and making a bee-line to the check-out counter.

"Anything else?" The bored-looking attendant asked.

"No," Dean snapped.

I do not want condoms. I don't want anything. I just need to get my girl up and running and get back on the job. I need to get back on track. I need to… dammit… I need to stop thinking about her damn mouth.

Pocketing his change, Dean turned on his heel, slipping out through the back door and contemplating heading down the highway. The waves of heat that slammed into him from all sides changed his mind. His body was too worn from the last several days, too hollowed-out from the truth the dream walking had revealed to him—you're gonna die, Dean, and this is what you're gonna become—and too bone-dry from this unnatural heat to bear the brunt of the return trip.

The suffocating stillness sucked the air from his lungs as though a vacuum cleaner hose had been shoved down his throat. He nearly gagged from the lack of breeze as he searched the lot for Brenna. He saw her just as she swung a long leg over the back of her bike, settling her nicely-shaped ass on the seat, the slim curve of her back making him swallow a groan.

She shot him a look as he approached. He couldn't read it and didn't want to.

"You can put that jug in my bags," she said, pointing to what looked like saddle bags. "I don't have an extra helmet."

Dean did as she instructed, then shrugged. "I have a hard head."

"Climb on," she said, strapping the black helmet under her chin and waiting until he settled in behind her to kick the engine on. "You might want to put that extra shirt on over those wounds."

Silently arguing that he was just fine, dammit, and didn't need any suggestions from her, Dean did as she said.

"Damn, it's hot out here," she sighed.

"Sam says it's not a normal heat," Dean informed her.

"Sam's a smart guy," she replied.

Dean had been on the back of a bike before, but never behind someone. Never behind Brenna. The thrill of the rumble between his legs only served to amplify his already heady senses and as she pulled out he realized he had two choices: hold on to the tiny bar just under his rear-end, or hold on to her waist.

Swallowing his enormous pride with an almost-audible gulp, he set his hands at her waist, trying to block out the scoop of her shape, the memory of how she moved against him, how her skin had felt as it glided smoothly over the hard planes of his belly.

Get a fuckin' grip, Winchester.

Dean leaned forward. "She's a few miles down this road. On the right."

"We'll find her," Brenna shouted back.

Dean pulled back slightly, his eyes catching on the Celtic tattoo on her neck. The Gaelic word for faith. Something she claimed she'd never had in herself. Something he'd seen her exhibit multiple times. Saving him. Saving Sam. Helping them to save each other.

Safety and danger wrapped around Brenna like a vine, pulling him close to her and pushing him away at the same time. He felt twisted and torn. Excitement and dread began to battle in his chest, making it hard for him to take a deep breath.

He pictured the vault. Sam's vault. With Sam safely inside. He pictured the wheel lock. He watched his hand reach for the lock, spinning it, opening it, seeing Sam standing there on the other side, whole, happy. He closed his eyes and subconsciously leaned forward, his chest resting lightly against Brenna's back.

He wanted inside. And he couldn't move.

After they'd ridden for a bit in silence and memories, Brenna called out, "There she is."

Dean jerked back, gripping her sides tighter in reaction. As they slowed, Dean realized the wind that had been cooling the sweat on his neck was simply from their speed and not from any release of oppressive heat.

"Yep, that's my baby," he said, his smile genuine as Brenna pulled off the road behind the Impala, stopping the Indian in the shade of the large tree.

Dean swung from the back and grabbed the radiator fluid, making his way to the front of the Chevy. In his periphery, he could see Brenna pulling her helmet off, the pencil-thing holding her hair tumbling loose and spilling a mess of shoulder-length red-gold curls out to hang limply around her face.

He found himself stopping and looking. There was something arresting about her face. Conventionally, she wasn't beautiful. Her large eyes were hard to look at sometimes, and her rosebud mouth was set in a quirk of humor that made people think she knew something they didn't.

Which, Dean surmised, leaning into the engine, she usually did. But she made up for her lack of cover-girl beauty with the way she used her face, the way she held her slim, strong body.

The way she climbed under his skin and made herself at home.

"I forgot how pretty she is," Brenna's voice filtered toward him, making him jerk upright, barely missing cracking his skull on the underside of the hood. "You've got yourself a nice machine here, Dean."

"Yeah," Dean nodded, pouring the rest of the radiator fluid into the opening, the greasy cap resting on the edge of the engine. "My own damn fault for not taking better care of her."

"You were distracted," Brenna said, indicating his back with a tip of her chin and leaning against the front passenger door. She propped her feet up on the tree so that her denim legs made a bridge.

Watching her, he immediately thought of crawling under her legs.

Stop it. Where had these cravings come from? Was it simply his ticking clock, his world turned sideways? Was it a desperate reach for the impossible? Brenna wasn't one of the Double mint twins. She wasn't a sexy bartender or a classy pool hustle. She was real, dammit.

"No excuse," Dean said.

"That you talking? Or your Dad?"

Dean twisted the radiator cap closed and shut the hood, drawing her eyes. "You never knew my Dad."

"I knew enough," she said softly, reminding him with a glance how much she had seen when she looked inside of him.

He stared at her for a moment, watching the heat draw moisture from her skin to bead on her upper lip and run down the side of her face. He felt it tickle the curve of his spine and wanted to pluck his T-shirt away from his body.

"Thanks for the ride."

Brenna ran a tongue across her lips, looking down. Dean held his breath, waiting for her to say something. Anything. Wanting her to call his bluff, tell him he was being an ass, launch herself at him. They were like opposing magnets, he thought. Drawn to each other and yet kept apart by an invisible force that emanated directly from them.

Someone just needs to flip over.

Instead, she pressed her hands flat against the Impala, dropping her feet and looked over at him, tipping her fingertips to her forehead in a salute.

"You're welcome," she said. "Maybe I'll see you around again… someday."

And there it was.

The promise they'd made before there were deals with demons. Before Hell had opened its arms for him, a place all picked out, devils salivating for his arrival. Hot or cold, there was a Hell, and he was facing it.

Alone.

"Brenna," he called. "Wait."

She stopped at the trunk of the Impala, turning her head to look at it, not him. She brushed her fingertip along the black body.

"I don't know what to say…"

She turned to face him. "Why do you have to say anything?"

"A lot has happened to me—to Sam and me—since… since I last saw you."

She raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? Well, I've been living in a plastic bubble."

Dean huffed out a laugh. He'd almost forgotten her. Almost. Her meaning was clear. He wasn't the only one with a story. He watched as she let her eyes travel from the tips of his dust-covered boots to his sun-heated face. Parts of her voice, her touch, her sight lingered in his memory.

Yet it had been Lisa he'd seen in his dream—that Sam had seen. But was it Lisa he wanted, or the stability she represented? The hope…

"I can't see you, Dean," Brenna said quietly.

"Why is it that you're always telling me that?" He felt his sweaty face pull together in a frustrated frown.

She shook her head. "No, that's not what I mean." She stepped forward. "When… when Declan died, something changed. I… lost it."

"Lost it?" Dean asked, somehow sensing that she wasn't talking about tears. Wasn't talking about emotions. I can't see you… "You mean, you lost your, uh, powers?"

Brenna nodded. "When I touch people… they're just… people. They are what they show me."

"But—"

She shrugged, the motion stopping his protest. "I can't explain it. But there you go. Sometimes gifts are gifts and sometimes they're simply moments in time."

Dean thought of Sam's premonitions, his death visions. They had all ended when Azazel died.

"I'm… sorry, Brenna," he said sincerely. "That's gotta be…" He turned his hands over helplessly.

"It's like learning how to breathe again," she said, taking another step toward him.

He felt her yearn for his touch. He felt her want to reach out to him and hold herself away at the same time. He recognized the dichotomy of feeling only because he'd been there. So many times before.

He took a step toward her. No more space than the body of another person separated them now.

Why now… he wondered helplessly. Why run into her now, in this moment, in this place? Why couldn't I have just left it at someday and had her wonder for the rest of her life what had happened to that screwed-up hunter who had crossed her path a few times?

He didn't want her to know he was going to Hell. He didn't want her to know that Sam had died. He didn't want her to know that his world had stopped in that moment and until his breathless confession of I don't want to die…I don't want to go to Hell…everything he'd said and done had been a façade. A way to keep the mask in place.

He didn't want her to take away the mask. He was safe inside that act.

"Brenna…" he breathed softly, reaching out carefully to lightly touch the smooth, bare skin of her arm. What the hell am I doing?

"It's okay," she took a step back. "I know what you're thinking."

He frowned, his fingers freezing in motion against her arm. "Wait, I thought you just said—"

She rolled her eyes, looking so much like Sam in that moment that he flinched. "Not because I'm a druid, Dean. Because I know you."

He drew his shoulders back, dropping his hand. "Oh yeah?" He challenged.

"Yeah," she tossed back, cocking her hip against the Impala and crossing her arms. "You're thinking, what the hell am I doing?"

He felt the blood drain from his head and race itself to his belly.

"You're thinking, Sam's waiting for me, I'm already running late. You're thinking, I've got a job to do, and she's not in the plan. You're thinking, I don't have time for this, and even if I want to touch her, to hold her, to kiss her, I can't."

She straightened and he saw her pulse beating at the base of her throat. His blood pounded against itself to get to the bend of his hips, flooding his groin with heat, shaking his knees with need.

"You're thinking," she stepped toward him once more. "I can't because it doesn't make sense to be focused on the damn job one minute and something that I want the next. You're thinking, she's not just a fling, a roll in the hay, the barmaid from the Down and Dirty. You're thinking, she counts and that's scary as hell and I don't want to—"

Dean grabbed her arms, pressing her against the Impala, the curve at the small of her back absorbing the jut of the door handle, aligning the length of his body with hers and capturing her mouth with his in a drink of flesh.

God, she tastes so good…

It was like water, wine, and poison all at once. He slanted his mouth, feeling her press her arms forward, reaching for him. He breathed in the heady scent that traveled along her skin, the scent of sweat and road and wind and woman. He relaxed slightly, allowing her to dig her fingers into his biceps and arch up into him.

"What am I thinking now?" he asked against her mouth.

"Who's thinking?" she breathed.

He wanted more. He wanted it all. He wanted to feel her inside and out. He wanted to be safe with her, just for a moment, just pretend that none of this was real. That Hell was a place demons went. That angels were watching over him and heroes who saved the day were rewarded with a kiss.

The sound of her breath as she broke from him briefly was intoxicating. It was rough and needy and rich. He slid his arms from her elbows to her neck, fingers slipping on the sweat there, skidding up into the hot nest of her long curls, pressing her mouth closer.

She gripped at his loose, damp shirt, pulling at it like she was desperate for skin, trying to hold her self closer. Her body felt like it was gasping against him, pushing close and slipping away with every rocking heartbeat.

It struck him suddenly as he swept his tongue along the insides of her lips that they had rarely been together when he wasn't damaged. He could think of one time out of three…one time where she hadn't had to be careful of hurting him more…where he just took her and branded her as he was doing now.

"Someday—" she whispered.

"Shhh…" he pulled his head away from her mouth, looking at her wide eyes, her swollen lips. "Don't."

"I was just going to say," she panted, dropping her head back against the roof of the Impala as he gripped her thighs and lifted her so her legs could wrap around his waist. "That someday we should really think about doing this in a nice, big bed."

He almost laughed. His grin shook through him and he watched her eyes drowsily find his.

"You sure?" he asked.

"Sure, I'm sure," she said. "A king size would be great…"

"No," Dean shook his head. "I mean about now…"

"Dean, I swear to God if you don't fuck me right now I'm going to—"

He silenced her threat with a kiss that pulled her exhale into his lungs, filling him. He breathed her in, offering her nothing back, making her fight for every gasp, hearing the small whimpers in her throat turn into moans as he pulled his mouth away to trail kisses down her salty neck, licking the sweat away, turned on by the idea that he was taking more of her into him.

She thrust her denim-clad hips against his, almost growling when he pressed his open mouth over her T-shirt-covered breast.

"Oh, God," she whimpered. "You're gonna kill me…"

"Don't worry," he whispered. "I know what I'm doing."

She went suddenly stiff, confusing him. She released her hold on his hips, shoving him back with trembling hands.

"What am I doing?" she muttered, pushing her sweaty hair away from her face.

"Me, unless I am really off my game," Dean frowned.

He couldn't move away from her now if his life depended on it. He needed her mouth, her hands, the honeysuckle and salt smell of her. He needed to bury himself inside of her so deep he would need a guide to find his way out again. He needed to forget everything but her. Feel nothing but her.

"You do know what you're doing, don't you?" She asked, her voice trembling. "Do you know that ever since that damn banshee, there's been no one else for me but you?"

Dean instantly thought of Sinatra and felt a cold splash of pity wash through him. "Brenna—"

"But you…" she shook her head, sliding down the Impala until she crouched next to the door, her head resting on the door handle. "You've got the seduction technique down. You know exactly what you're doing. And I know you've used it on plenty…"

Dean thought of Lisa…the double mint twins…the beautiful, natural act he'd teased his brother about. He thought of Casey, and Cassie. He thought of all the girls who had just been a way to make the demons go away and had only ended up adding to his roster.

"Doesn't matter," he said, a dawning realization coursing through him, filling him, making him hard enough to shake.

"Yeah?" She challenged, tilting her kiss-swollen lips up at him in a pout. "Why?"

He sank to his knees in front of her, the shade tree offering solace from the dying sun, its heat as intense as it was in the strength of the day. He reached out and with gentleness he thought beyond him, caressed the edge of her jaw, running his thumb across her lips.

"It just doesn't," he said, swallowing, unable to find a reason good enough, unable to put a coherent voice to the screaming in his head.

She looked at him then, her eyes raking over him, taking in every line, every scar, every place the world had wounded him, every moment he had resisted. He felt himself react to her eyes.

"I need to leave," she said suddenly, pushing him away and gaining her feet, using the heated metal of the Impala for balance. "I can't do this now. Not now… not like this."

Dean clamored to his feet. "I want to see you again," he said.

"You will," she promised, turning to face him. "Someday," she added with a sad grin.

"Someday's not good enough," he replied, his eyes burning.

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Just that… shit happens, y'know? And someday… one of us might not be here." He swallowed as his voice broke, feeling exposed as he'd never been when she'd used her druid sight on him.

She stepped up to him, touching his cheek, the back of her smooth hand bumping softly against the barely-there stubble on his chin. Her lips were no longer swollen, but his scruff had rubbed the edges enough that they looked used and raw. He'd branded her after all.

"What do I need to see, Dean? What aren't you telling me?" She dropped her hand.

"Nothing," he lied. "Just that… I… I want more."

Brenna looked down. "I woke up one day… soon after we left Declan's place… and somehow knew exactly what I was supposed to do." She lifted her eyes. "In the months since then, it's all gotten really cloudy."

Dean shivered in the heat, unsure why he suddenly couldn't stay warm. He wanted her hands on him again. He wanted that loss of self again. He wanted more than just a climax; he wanted the fall, he wanted the feeling of being held when he landed.

"Go back to Sam," she commanded. "Finish the job."

"We're always finishing the job," he sighed, looking down.

"It's what you do," she smiled, sadly. "It's what you always do."

And now the job is going to finish me…

"Somehow… I think we'll find each other," she continued. "I know that sounds cheesy, but…"

Dean sighed dramatically, looking over the top of the Impala to the deserted road. "And she rode off into the sunset…"

Brenna laughed slightly. "Something like that." She looked over her shoulder as the crazy-heat of the sun slowly faded, the brilliant star tucking itself beneath the horizon in a slow give of power. "We both have someone waiting for us."

Dean nodded, grabbing her wrist as she turned away. She met his eyes one last time and he felt his body react. He let her go, watching as she mounted the bike, turned, and headed back to the truck stop and, supposedly, Virgil.

Dean looked down dust-covered boots. His back burned, his muscles ached, his body was taunt with an unresolved need. Scratching the back of his head with a frustrated hand, he turned and walked around the side of the Impala, tossed the shirt and the jacket that he'd used as a towel when filling up the Impala's radiator into the back seat, climbed behind the wheel, and turned on the car.

The silence mocked him. He could still hear her sigh. He turned on the radio.

"…got a freight train running through the middle of my head, oh, oh, you cool my desire… ooh, ooh, ooh, I'm on fire…"

"Friggin' Springsteen," Dean muttered, reaching for the dial.

"In my life there's been heartache and pain. I don't know if I can face it again. Can't stop now, I've traveled so far to change this lonely life…"

"The hell?" Dean punched the dial again.

"…still hear her voice in the wind. I still thing of you in the night. Well, I guess she'll never know how much I need her so…"

"Are you freakin' kidding me?" Dean yelled, punching the dial again. "What the hell is this, the Universe versus Dean Winchester night?"

"You must understand this, I've watched you for so long that I feel I've known you, I know it can't be wrong. If we just get together, I want to make you see, I'm dreaming of your sweet love tonight…"

"Argh!" Dean beat the palm of his hand against the steering wheel. "Shit on a friggin' stick," he growled, turning the volume off and listening to the heady rumble of the Impala. Taking a breath, he caressed her steering wheel, rolling his tender back against the still-warm seat and pulling in her heat, letting it ease the ache in his body.

Pressing the accelerator flat, he reveled in the jolt that slid through his body as the one lady in his life he knew he could count on responded to his touch. Letting his still-dry lips flatten against his teeth as he grinned, he began to belt out his own retaliation back at the universe.

"Oh, baby, you're the only thing in this whole world that's pure and good and right," he sang as he turned on the headlights while the torturous sun gave way to twilight, his voice catching on the wind that whipped past his open window and spilling free into the night. "And wherever you are and wherever you go, there's always gonna be some light…"

www

Sam paced.

It was usually Dean's method of dealing with stress, but he was at the end of his tether to sanity and trapped in Boxcar Willie's spare room with nothing except boxes from his father's past to keep him company.

"Where the hell are you?" He asked aloud for the fiftieth time to the empty room. The opened curtains fluttered limply in the tease of air that skipped in. "This is not happening again, Dean."

He'd stacked the contents of each box in orderly piles, delineated by situation, year, or hunt as near as he could match them to John's journal. He'd translated four of the spells written in Latin. He'd lingered over each photograph, staining several of them with quiet tears unashamedly shed over the loss of a lifetime of memories.

He'd pulled everything he could find that might have anything to do with the Kestrel dagger, and found a few other pieces of information that shed some light on the dagger that Ruby had brought into the mix. He'd all but packed and repacked their clothes, and was about to start cleaning their guns—a duty strictly left to Dean—when his cell phone rang.

He jumped, startled, at the sound. He stared at the read-out for two rings before pulling it together and answering.

"Bobby?!" A crackle answered him. "Bobby! Wait, wait, don't hang up… give me a second to…"

Spinning in the center of the room, Sam tried to think of how to bring the signal in stronger. Darting through the opened door, he checked his bars, yelling Bobby's name into the receiver as the bars grew in strength. On a burst of inspiration, he swung up onto the old ladder in the back of the rail car, making his way to the roof.

"Bobby?"

"Sam! What the hell?"

"Don't ask, man," Sam half-laughed, giddy at hearing the older man's voice clearly. "How you been?"

"Been better," Bobby admitted. "Where the hell are you boys?"

"Pennsylvania."

"Still?"

"Again," Sam said, quickly explaining about the storage unit and a lead that might help Dean. He decided not to go into detail, not convinced that what he planned on doing was exactly… kosher in the good versus evil war.

He didn't exactly care about the line he might be crossing, however. Dean had already crossed a line for him, to save him, and he was not about to let Hell have its way with his brother. He was going to save him. Or die trying.

Because living in this world without his big brother would turn him into someone he wouldn't want to be anyway.

"You still with me, Sam?"

"Yeah," Sam cleared his throat, turning to face the direction Dean had driven away more than four hours ago. A train whistle echoed in the distance. "Yeah, I'm here."

"You boys have any, uh…" Sam waited as Bobby searched for the right words. "Aftershocks from that dream root?"

Sam frowned, detecting a small cloud of dust in the distance. He had to press his cell close to his ear to hear Bobby over the noise of the train as it raced passed him. "What do you mean?"

Bobby's sigh was telling. "Bruising, bleeding, insomnia—"

"Oh, shit, Bobby," Sam sat down, hard, unable to believe that they had neglected to call their friend. "Listen, yeah, yeah, we did."

As he continued to talk, he realized the small cloud of dust was growing and from it birthed the shape of the Impala. Relief washed over him, making him dizzy.

"You're saying it's all in my head?" Bobby pressed.

"No, it's real alright, but the wounds are psychosomatic. You believe they're real, so… they're real."

"I'll be a son of a bitch."

"The morning after Dean and I talked about what we'd really seen in his head… the bruises were gone."

"Oh, swell," Bobby groused. "I gotta go find someone and have open and honest hour."

The Impala turned down the road and Sam stood up. "Maybe not," he said to Bobby. "Maybe this was enough."

"Alright, well," Bobby groused. "I'll just click my heels together and tell myself there's no place like home. And Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"You two be careful, okay? I don't know what you're up to, but I got a call from Ellen."

Sam pulled his attention from the approaching Impala to the phone. "Ellen?"

"You remember Griffin?"

Sam closed his eyes, still tasting the fear and anger from that night in the rain as it ran down the back of his throat. "Yeah, I remember him."

"Well, he's hot after some knife and she said he's in a take-no-prisoners mood."

Swell. "Any idea where he is?"

"Ellen just said somewhere in the northeast."

The Impala stopped and Sam nodded. "We'll be careful."

"It's okay to call and say 'hi' once in awhile, you know?" Bobby muttered. "Take care of that brother of yours."

"I will," Sam promised, hanging up as Dean exited the vehicle, moving stiffly. "Decided to come back, did you?"

"Well, as much as I like a good crime scene, it wasn't the same without you," Dean said, closing the door and leaning a hip against the car.

He was hurting, that much Sam could see from his overhead perch, but he was relatively intact.

"Who was that on the phone?"

"Bobby," Sam replied swinging a leg over the top rung of the ladder.

"You tell him to unplug from the Matrix?" Dean moved forward and Sam saw that his jacket, tie, and button-down shirt were gripped in his hand.

"More or less… Dude, what the hell happened to you?"

"I'd tell you, but you'd gloat so damn much you'd be impossible to live with," Dean sighed, moving past him and into the rail car. Sam saw that his T-shirt had stuck to the seeping wounds on his back.

"The car overheated, didn't it?" Sam grinned.

"Shut up," Dean sighed. "Tell me there's at least beer in this sorry excuse for a fridge."

"There is," Sam nodded, following his brother inside.

He took the ruined clothes from Dean's hand, tossing them across one of the two chairs that flanked the card table positioned across from the small refrigerator. Dean opened the door and Sam heard the clink of bottles in the door. Dean's sigh of relief drew another smile from Sam as he slid first one hip, then the other onto the countertop.

"Well," Dean sighed after taking a long pull on the bottle of Budweiser. "We got us one freaky-ass case."

Sam narrowed his eyes as Dean reached back blindly for the chair not covered with his ruined clothes. "Dude… you are red."

"I was out in the sun for awhile, Sam," Dean said. "Don't make a big deal about it."

Sam's quick eyes found the marks on his brother's arm—scratch marks. He frowned. There weren't any other bruises on Dean's face…

"Were you in a fight?"

"What? No," Dean took another drink of beer. "Listen, we need to get back into Brookville tomorrow. Talk to that Sherriff guy. Get him to give us whatever he's holding back."

Sam slid off the counter and went for the first aid kit. "What makes you think he's holding something back?"

"Get the scissors, man," Dean sighed, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. "I'm not pulling this thing off."

"Okay."

"For one," Dean continued about the hunt. "The bodies are placed where they're found. The people aren't being killed there."

Sam took this in, not even thinking to question how Dean knew this. Dean might not be able to explain what a quadratic equation was, but when it came to street smarts and hunting savvy, there was no one who could match his brother in skills.

He stepped over to Dean, standing in front of him and slid the cool blade of the scissors along his brother's spine, cutting the soiled T-shirt free from his body. Dean hissed as Sam pulled the cotton away from the deeper wounds, and with it not only the gauze bandages but the beginnings of scabs that had finally started to form.

"Sorry," Sam winced.

"Not gonna lie to you," Dean breathed. "Hurts like hell."

"I bet," Sam said, wetting a rag with antiseptic. "You ready?"

"No," Dean muttered, turning so that he straddled the chair, gripping the back of the furniture and giving Sam easy access to the wounds.

"Now?"

"Still no," Dean grumbled. He stiffened and cried out when Sam began to clean away the pus and blood from the edges of the wounds. "Jesus Christ!"

"Okay, so not killed where they're found," Sam encouraged, trying to keep his brother talking, keeping him focused on something other than the pain. "Where is he killing them?"

"Beats the holy hell out of me," Dean muttered, teeth clenched. "Fuck!"

"I'm trying to take it easy," Sam informed him, wincing as he cleaned another of the small, meaty wounds. "You're not exactly holding still. Good thing I'm not giving you a tattoo or something. You'd end up with a freaky-assed design."

Dean chuckled, then stilled.

"Dean?"

"Y'know," Dean said straightening, his sun-burned profile turning to catch Sam's eyes. "That's not a bad idea."

"Dude," Sam stepped back. "I so draw the line at tattooing you."

"Not you, dumbass," Dean stood, grabbing his sliced-up T-shirt and wiping the sweat streaks from his chest. His amulet bounced against his breastbone. "Getting tattoos."

Sam lifted an eyebrow. "I think you have heatstroke."

Dean frowned and reached for Sam's shirt collar. Sam flinched back before he realized that Dean was going for the charm Bobby had give them to ward off possession.

"We keep wearing these charms, why not make it permanent?"

Sam blinked. He opened his mouth to protest, closed it and blinked again.

Dean spread his arms out in a tell me why this isn't a good idea gesture.

"Huh," Sam said finally. "Where did you come up with that?"

Dean flinched then turned away, his exposed back reminding Sam that his job wasn't done. He pushed his brother back into the chair and started applying ointment on the red sores.

"Dean?"

"Hm?" Dean answered, jaw tight as he fought against the urge to cry out once more.

"It's a good idea," Sam relented. "Just not something I thought I'd ever hear from you."

"Well, if we're seriously gonna use that knife against any demons, I'd rather have something other than a—ow, damn, man!—can of spray paint and a shotgun full of rock salt to keep it from getting all up inside me, as Bobby says."

"Got any idea where we go?"

"None," Dean said, dropping his forehead on his folded arms, drawing Sam's eyes to the bend in his neck.

Sam continued to bandage his brother's back, thinking. The only person he knew in recent memory that was tattooed had been that demon Casey. Well, the demon and Brenna Kavanagh, of course, but she wasn't—

Sam stopped, looking at the scratches on his brother's biceps, thinking about the gap of time between Dean's departure and his return.

"Dean?"

"What?"

"Anything else happen in Toby?"

"Like what?"

"Dunno," Sam shrugged, tapping Dean's shoulder to indicate he was finished. "Anything."

Dean shook his head as he stood. He flipped the chair back around and went to the fridge once more. "Highlight of the day was getting shown up by my little brother and having to get radiator fluid for my car."

Dean plucked another beer from the fridge, running the cold glass across his forehead before positioning the cap on the edge of the counter and smacking it free of the bottle with one sure hit.

"Okay," Sam nodded, turning away and digging into his bag of clothes.

He knew Dean better than anyone. He knew when he was hurting, and when he was hiding. Something happened while Dean was gone, something he suspected involved a certain red-headed druid. But from the set of Dean's shoulders, now was apparently not the time to talk about it.

From the look of those scratches, whatever it was didn't go well, Sam thought, grabbing a clean shirt from the bag. Or… it went a little… too well.

Without warning, the memory of his illicit dream of Bela sprang to his memory and Sam shook slightly with the impact of imagined sensations. "I'm gonna grab a shower."

"Fine," Dean nodded. "Then I say we head into Brookville, check out the first crime scene."

"Fine," Sam replied, realizing only when the spray of the putrid-smelling well water hit his face that he'd forgotten to tell his brother about Bobby's warning of Griffin.

www

"You're right," Sam said softly as they played the beams of their flashlights—both having remembered to bring one this time—over the empty alley of the first crime scene. "There's no way someone bled out here."

"Plus, look at the position of these posts," Dean said from behind him. "He put them there for a reason. He needs them to be facing one another."

"Yeah, but… why?"

Dean switched off his light and stepped into the circular glow of Sam's. "Let's do it by the numbers."

Sam raised a brow. "Dean, your version of doing it by the numbers is paper, rock, scissors."

Dean crossed his arms and Sam heard his swift intake of breath just before he uncrossed them once more, resting his hands on his hips. "Fine, so I got that from an episode of CSI. My point is, let's break it down."

Sam nodded and they moved toward the entrance of the alley, guided by Sam's flashlight. "The deaths occur in pairs, the pairs are connected somehow. If he's using the Kestrel dagger, there is something about the souls of the pairs that is important."

"Or maybe it's not their souls, so much as their connection. I mean, they're people. They have souls," Dean pointed out. "That's not so unusual. But… mother and daughter? Siblings? Lovers? That's unique-ish."

"Good point," Sam conceded. "Okay, so he needs the connection… but… how does he… feed off of it? What does that give him?"

Dean sighed. "I don't know, but I think not getting it is what is turning this into the hottest autumn on record."

"Gonna have to agree with you there," Sam said, puffing his T-shirt from his sticky chest rapidly to try to create a breeze. Dean squashed his attempt by slapping a hand across his chest. "Hey!" Sam protested.

"Eyes front, Sammy," Dean ordered, a grin plain in his voice. "We are go for tattoo's."

"What?" Sam looked in the direction Dean indicated, seeing a neon sign that read Cadillac Jack's Ink Emporium. "Seriously?"

"Having second thoughts?" Dean challenged, already starting to cross the empty street.

"Well, no, but—"

"C'mon, little brother. I won't let the big biker dudes molest you," Dean teased over his shoulder.

"Jerk," Sam grumbled, flicking off his flashlight and jogging after him.

They were the only two in the store at this hour of the night, and it took some convincing for Cadillac Jack to agree to two tattoos, but when Dean sketched out the sigil, explaining they wanted it for protection, Jack's thick, gray handlebar mustache twitched with curiosity and they were in.

"Want me to hold your hand?" Dean asked, eyes dancing.

"Bite me, dude," Sam grumbled. "I don't know why you're so excited about this. We're getting needles stuck into our flesh."

Dean shrugged. "Not much different than any other Saturday night."

Jack lifted a brow, but didn't speak.

"Why do I have to go first?" Sam heard himself whine. Once a little brother, always a little brother.

"Because I'm an awesome brother," Dean said, swinging a leg over the seat of a chair and resting his chin on the back rest. His sunburn had faded somewhat from garish pink to simply rose-colored glow and his eyes were alight with the excitement of someone sneaking out past curfew for the first time.

Sam almost chuckled as he removed his shirt per Jack's instructions, then held still as the artist pressed the outline of the sigil on his upper left peck. Dean looked happier than he'd seen him since—

"Ow!"

"Hold still, Sammy."

"You hold still," Sam grumbled, watching as Jack's needle carefully traced the outline of the protective emblem. The tiny needle darted into his skin so quickly Sam couldn't see the motion, but he felt the pinch of each insertion.

After several minutes, though, his skin seemed to go slightly numb, spiking with a tiny, tight pain again when Jack started to fill in the black, constantly wiping away the blood brought forth by the needle's intrusion. It took less time than Sam thought it would. As Jack finished, he patted the design one last time, covering the whole thing with ointment and instructing Sam to grease it up every so often over the next several days.

"Don't pick the scabs," Dean said, standing and preparing to change places with Sam.

"What are you, five?" Sam tossed back, but couldn't help but grin. "How are you going to sit back in that chair with your back messed up like it is?"

"Huh," Dean frowned. "Good point. Jack? Suggestions?"

Jack shrugged, flipped a padded, black tattoo chair around, then shoved the backrest down so that Dean could straddle it and lean forward without actually leaning on Jack.

"Situation solved," Dean said, wincing as he pulled his shirt over his head.

Sam watched his brother remain stoic and still as the sigil was branded by ink into his upper left peck. It was always startling for him to see Dean's bare chest, the scars there a testament to a life hard won.

Jack applied loose gauze patches over their new body art and they pulled their shirts back on before paying the man. Dean bantered with Jack for a moment before they left the parlor, the neon light flicking off behind them.

"Heh, we got inked," Dean chuckled as they walked down the street back in the direction of where they left the Impala. "That's awesome. Gotta say, that's something I didn't see happening."

The street was empty and dark, save the alternating red, green, and yellow glow of the traffic lights, and the halo of light from the staggered street lights. Sam grinned widely, bounced a shoulder against his brother, good naturedly jostling him toward the shadowed entrance of an alley.

"Well, it was certainly a different way to kill time. Next thing you know, we'll be—"

His words were stolen by the night as a figure swept from the alley, slamming into Dean's wounded back and shoving him face-first against the brick wall of the nearest building.

"Hey!"

Shaking off the shock of seeing his brother's legs disappear from under him, Sam rushed forward. The looming figure halted his advance with a well-placed elbow to the cheek.

Sam fell back, a hand at his face, spitting blood from where he'd bitten into his tongue upon impact. He looked up blearily to see Dean being turned around roughly, held against the brick wall by the formidable arm of their attacker, the point of a dagger glinting off of the street light and bending the vulnerable flesh at the base of Dean's throat.

"Coimhéad fearg fhear na foighde," the man growled.

Sam struggled to his knees, working to blink his vision clear.

"You want him dead, by all means, keep moving forward," Sam heard the man say, his face inches from Dean's.

Sam froze. "What do you want?"

"Kid, there are so many answers to that question, I wouldn't know where to start."

Sam felt his lip curl in anger. "What do you want with us?"

"I want," the man said, pressing the knife a little deeper, causing Dean to breathe in sharply, "you to go away."

In that moment, Sam knew he wasn't going to be fast enough.

---

a/n: More to come the week after Christmas.

I wanted to share with ya'll the link to the downloadable version of an awesome vid by LSktech42. She made it for me after I completed In the Light. *grins* Thanks, girl!

Please to enjoy: http:// www .4shared .com/ file/ 75294456/55a0094a/ Supernatural-_Thunderstruck .html

(remember to remove the spaces)

Playlist:

Black by Pearl Jam

I'm on Fire by Bruce Springsteen

I Want to Know What Love Is by Foreigner

The Ballad of Jayne by L.A. Guns

Let Me Take You Home Tonight by Boston

Bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf (Kelly, that one is for you)

Translations:

Coimhéad fearg fhear na foighde. Beware the anger of a patient man.