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.

4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer/Spoilers: See chapter 1. Note: Violence, potentially disturbing images, and language in this chapter.

a/n: A good friend recently told me that I was using fanfiction as a 'crutch' and not a 'stepping stone.' I'm not sure yet how I feel about that, though I know it was said with love; I do want to make an attempt to write "for real," but until that time, I really enjoy telling these stories, as long as you guys enjoy reading them.

Because nothing lasts forever, I know there will eventually be an end to this for me. But I hope until that time you remain entertained, and I want each of you reading to know that I really appreciate your time and the gifts of your reviews.

As ever, I am grateful for the safety net you provide, Kelly. Ash, your insight was of a true friend.

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I made a commitment. I'm willing to bleed for you. I needed fulfillment. I found what I need in you…

- Right Here, Staind

www

"What do you need that for?"

Dean pressed his lips together, shoving a full clip into the base of his 1911 and pulling back the bolt to load a bullet into the chamber. He slid his eyes askance, skimming Virgil's doubtful countenance a moment before he answered.

"I'm not going in there naked," he replied. "Besides, I don't trust that guy."

"Thought he was a hunter."

Dean lifted a brow, tucking the pearl-handled Colt into the back waist-band of his jeans and flipping the tail of his too-big, borrowed shirt over the weapon to hide its existence.

"You trust every paramedic you run into?"

Virgil tipped his head to the side, conceding the point. "Wanna hand one over?"

The corner of Dean's mouth pulled up in a partially-amused grin as he tapped the trunk closed with the butt of his hand. The black metal had drawn in the sun's intensity until it felt like a branding iron.

"Sorry man," he said, closing and locking the trunk. He moved around to the front of the car, grabbed his cell from the hot front seat, then locked the door.

"You expect me to go in with you, confront a guy you don't trust, and not have a weapon?"

"No." Dean shook his head, sliding the cell phone into the front pocket of his jeans. "I expect you to wait outside while I go in and confront a guy I don't trust."

"Dean—"

Dean lifted a hand, silencing Virgil's protest. His mind was made up; no one else was going to tangle with Griffin's messed-up sense of retribution. Dean knew he was the only one who could truly put a stop to this run-away train of revenge.

"Listen, man. You're coming along 'cause you can put us back together if this thing goes sideways," Dean pointed out. "So, while I go in there and talk to Mr. Bad-Ass Hunter, you head to your truck and get whatever you need. Meet me back here in twenty minutes."

Virgil narrowed his eyes. "Hey," he said, squaring his shoulders. "I'm not your kid brother. You can't just… give an order and expect me to follow."

Dean felt his face empty of emotion even as his pulse spiked. His lids lowered in a dead-eyed, defensive expression he'd perfected over years of building up protective walls; he unconsciously shifted his stance into one preparing for a fight, only realizing he'd done so when Virgil brought his head up and took a half-step back.

Ignoring the perceived insult to Sam, Dean said in a low voice, "You got a better plan? Have at it. But I'm going in there. Alone"

Turning on his heel, Dean stepped away from Virgil, his ears tuned to the other man's movement. A smirk of satisfaction played across his bruised mouth when he heard Virgil swear, then stalk with measured, angry steps toward his red pick-up. Jogging across the narrow street, Dean stepped up to the entrance of the Iron Bar, leaving the heat outside with the dying light of day.

Brookville's Iron Bar was no different from any other saloon, pool hall, or dance club he'd been inside over the years. Music from a jukebox or live band filtering through the empty spaces and gaps in conversation. Bar in the center or at the side, manned by a heavy-set man or a hard-won, tough-sold woman. Stale cigarette smoke and cologne weighing down the air. Worn furniture masked by bright lights tossing well-placed shadows.

Places such as this were as familiar to him as the inside of the Impala, the well-used décor of a motel room, or the gutted edge of a highway. For a moment, Dean felt a stab of nostalgia slink through him as he took in the ambience of the Iron Bar and its evening patrons. It was strange, the things he found he'd miss when the year was over.

Sam, of course.

The Impala, sure.

The smell of the earth after a hard rain, the soft give of a woman's belly against his lips, the weight of a weapon in his hand. He never thought it would be the inside of a bar; he allowed that perhaps it wasn't the environment causing an almost tangible sensation of homesickness, but the idea that his version of normal was what brought him to this fate.

For a brief moment, he wondered if his dad had time to contemplate loss between making his deal and fulfilling his end of the bargain. Were we on your list, Dad?

Giving himself a mental shake, Dean stepped farther into the room, his arms loose and ready, his hands open at his sides, his eyes lidded with malice and protection as they skipped over the road-weary men, shifting to warm invitation as they caught the lazy grin of a blonde waitress.

He knew where to find Griffin: far corner of the room, back to the wall, eyes reflecting the light of his cigarette. The urge to roll his eyes at the whole gunslinger image was nearly overwhelming. The only thing that kept him in check was the fact that he was purposely alone in this confrontation, leaving his only trusted back-up, the other side of his coin, behind.

He knew he needed his brother. He was good at his job, but he was better with Sam. He was best with Sam. But he also knew that he trusted no one else to cover Brenna. And she needed covering, despite what she might say. He needed to know she was okay. Sam was his only guarantee of that.

Focus, Dean, he admonished himself. Thinking of her now would lead him down a path he couldn't afford to travel.

Taking a shallow breath, Dean moved easily through casual grouping of people, stopping at Griffin's table, his hip bones pressed against the back of an empty chair positioned opposite the swarthy hunter.

"Winchester," Griffin nodded. "Knew Sam wouldn't be able to collar you."

Dean felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise at the second insult to his brother in the last ten minutes. He exhaled slowly, tightening his jaw as he ticked his head to the side.

"Sam's got more important things to worry about right now," he said.

"I'm sure he does," Griffin smirked. "Doesn't matter. I was counting on this."

Dean narrowed his eyes. "On what?"

"You." Griffin looked up. "Sam woulda just wanted to try to save the bastard."

"And I won't?"

Griffin shook his head. "You won't have a problem wasting him," he answered calmly.

Dean felt the muscle in his jaw tick. It didn't matter that what Griffin said may have been true in extreme circumstances; the fact that he was perceived as having so little regard for the human condition turned something inside of him cold. He felt his pulse slowing, his body working to remain calm, as he leaned over the table, tenting his fingers on the wood, his face inches from Griffin's.

"Don't forget," he said, his voice low and dangerous, "that Sam did what you couldn't with that spirit back in the clearing."

Griffin's dark eyes glittered. "I haven't."

The two hunters held each other's gaze for another tension filled moment, then Dean straightened, leaning a shoulder against the wall near Griffin.

"So, you know where this bastard lives."

Griffin nodded, pinching the remainder of his cigarette between his index finger and thumb, pulling the smoke into his mouth and exhaling it through his nostrils.

"You wanna play nice or what?" Dean pushed away from the wall, his irritation with Griffin's forced nonchalance obvious in the set of his jaw. "I don't have time for this shit."

Griffin smirked, crushing his cigarette out on the table top. "There's a mine outside of town. Been abandoned for awhile; I think it's the wizard's own personal Fortress of Solitude."

"What makes you think that?"

Griffin looked up, his dark eyes holding a hint of amusement at Dean's curiosity.

"Turns out I'm more than just a pretty face," he taunted.

Dean curled his fingers against the palm of his hand. His entire body thrummed with the need to crack his knuckles against the hunter's smug face.

"Listen, asshole," Dean ground out through clenched teeth, "you're the one that changed your tune, not me. I'd be just fine looking for this freak without your help—"

"Looking," Griffin interrupted, "not finding."

"You need me."

"I need your little Latination," Griffin waggled his hand like he thought the Latin rituals and spells to be a bit sketchy, "and your distraction. I don't need you."

Dean lifted a brow, quietly seething. Sam had mentioned going back to their rail car hideaway to get one of the spells from John's grenade boxes. Dean knew that if he were to step into his brother's shoes in this trumped-up scheme, he was definitely going to need that paper.

He ran the pad of his thumb across the inside groove of his ring, picturing suddenly an image of John, younger, perhaps, but still road-weary and time-worn, folding the bits of paper and stacking the photographs, setting them behind the wall, backing out slowly to set the tripwire. Had he ever intended on going back? On taking them back?

"Fine," Dean said finally, meeting Griffin's eyes once more. "I'll head back to the rail car and get the spell."

"I'm coming, too."

"Aw, that's sweet, but I don't need you to hold my hand—"

"Dean!"

Puzzled, Dean turned, seeing Griffin straighten in his periphery. Virgil stood in the doorway of the bar, attracting curious glances and inciting muffled speculations with his sudden appearance and frantic voice.

"Sinatra?"

Virgil caught sight of Dean and Griffin and pushed his way through the crowd of people, rushing up to them. The music recycled, drowning out the hushed, hurried conversation of the trio of men in the back of the room, returning the bar patrons to their own business.

"They're gone."

Dean stood, reaching out instinctively to grip the other man's shoulders, focusing Virgil's attention. He was sweaty, pale, and Dean could feel him a subtle tremble beneath his hands.

"What? Who's gone?"

"Brenna and your brother." Virgil licked his lips nervously. "And I don't think they went willingly."

Dean's brows met across the bridge of his nose in a fierce frown, his jaw muscle bouncing. "What are you talking about?"

"I was getting my supplies and I remembered Brenna has this… salve stuff, so I went back to the museum and," he held up a bright red plastic tube, about two inches in length, with what looked like frayed tassels on the end, "I found this just outside of the door."

"Looks like a dart," Griffin commented from over Dean's shoulder.

"Son of a bitch," Dean growled, shoving Virgil out of the way and moving like a human missile through the growing crowd of people. He didn't bother to see if the other two followed. He simply moved.

His pulse beat harder, a fast tattoo of pressure against his temple, his heartbeat echoing denial in his ears as he slammed through the doors of the bar, ran across the street, and met the unyielding lock of the museum entrance.

"Son of a bitch!" he yelled, slapping the flat of his hand against the window.

The lights were off inside and there was no sign of Sam or Brenna. He took a step back without regard to logic or the thought of a security system, and reared his leg, pelting the lock of the door with a powerful kick.

The screech of the alarm almost covered his bellow of "SAM!"

His frantic eyes shot around the darkened, empty room, looking for some sign of his brother. Near the far wall, he saw something reflect in the flashing white lights of the security system. Striding across the room, he bent down just as the pounding of feet shook the wood floor beneath him.

"What the fuck are you doing, Winchester?" Griffin exclaimed. "You wanna bring the whole town in on this?"

Dean straightened, holding between his index finger and thumb a silver charm twisted in the shape of the Celtic Trinity knot, its broken chain swinging against the side of his hand. He looked directly at Virgil who moved around Griffin's imposing shoulder, his face paler than it had been in the bar.

"Recognize this?" Dean asked in a strangled voice.

Virgil nodded. "It's… Brenna's."

Dean flipped the chain into his palm, and stuffed the necklace in his jeans pocket. "I know."

"Where are they?" Virgil bleated.

Dean looked at Griffin. "That psycho's got them."

"You don't know that." Griffin frowned.

Dean stepped toward him. "I know that this is the last place the first two victims were seen," he yelled over the wail of the alarm, ignoring the curious onlookers from the bar gathering in the open doorway, and continued forward, "I know the next two were in that bar," he pointed across the street, "and I know that you wanted to take a train from this place."

Nearly touching Griffin's chest with his own, Dean tilted his head in a challenge. "Now tell me that he doesn't have them."

The fact that he had left Sam here, with all those facts piling up around him, made him almost physically sick.

"What's going on here?!"

Dean didn't take his eyes from Griffin, recognizing Calhoun's nervous squeak. "Just doing a little FBI work, Cal," he replied.

"Who busted in here?" Ross demanded, stepping into the room next to Calhoun.

"I did," Dean and Griffin replied as one.

Dean blinked in surprise, and Griffin winked at him. Dean pulled back, suddenly off balance. Griffin turned to face the police as Virgil stepped up beside Dean.

"Officers." Griffin nodded, smirk firmly in place.

Ross moved up to Dean. "You better tell me what's going on here, or—"

Dean's already short fuse snapped with an almost audible crack. "Or what? You might have to do your fuckin' job?" Dean pushed past him, pausing next to Calhoun and looked back. "The freak that's been killing people in your town? Just took my brother. If it's all the same to you, I'm gonna go get him back."

He walked from the doorway of the museum toward the Impala.

"Your brother?" Ross yelled after him. "Thought he was your partner!"

Dean ignored him, as Virgil replied, "You work together long as they have, those two words mean the same thing."

"Winchester!"

Dean paused with his hand on the Impala's door, jerking his head up at the sound of his name. "What!"

"Not that way." Griffin shook his head. Virgil appeared next to Griffin just as the lonely wail of a train whistle filled the silence left in the security alarm's wake.

"What do you mean?" Dean frowned, feeling time speed up around him, pressing down on him with a weight to rival the oppressive heat.

Griffin pointed toward the approaching train. Dean looked over his shoulder as the large black engine slowed to a crawl. For one moment he hesitated; Sam had said he needed the spell. He knew his brother had been through those documents forwards and backwards. He also knew that Griffin was right: Sam would use the spell to spare the wizard while getting the knife.

Dean was in no mood for mercy. Not if that freak had Sam.

Who knows if the damn spell would have worked anyway, he thought. Dad had them tucked away like something he was ashamed of… right along with pictures of us.

"Hey!" Griffin snapped him back to the present. "You coming or what?"

Dean nodded, glancing once at Virgil, then followed Griffin as they headed toward the train, pausing where the grass disappeared into a slight gravel embankment. Dean rolled his bottom lip against his teeth nervously, his hands curling into fists and flexing free rhythmically, waiting for the train to stop.

After a beat, the box cars began to pass and the train started to speed up once more. Dean suddenly realized what Griffin intended.

The swarthy hunter bounced once, twice, then started to jog along the side of the train, reaching up smoothly to grip the edge of an open car, swinging into the opening as if he were mounting a horse.

"C'mon, you pansies!" he yelled back at Dean and Virgil.

Dean jerked his head at Virgil, then, pushing trepidation low where it could hide comfortably beneath the recklessness he was willing to engage in when it came to Sam, he began to run alongside the train. He started to pant as he caught up to the opening, reaching, but unable to grip the doorway. Daring to look up, he saw he was just shy of tall enough. Griffin was looking down at him, a grin playing around his mouth.

"Keep going!" Virgil gasped behind him. "Go!"

With a feral growl, Dean found a fifth gear, his legs churning, his lungs burning, the barely-healed wounds on his back crying out. He reached up once more and this time felt the rough, warm fingers of the older hunter wrap around his wrist. His feet left the ground and he instinctively tucked his shoulder in as he slammed against the dirty floor of the box car, rolling to a stop against the opposite wall.

Wheezing, dust pluming around him with his sharp bursts of air, Dean pulled his head up, propping his upper body with his left hand and looked toward the opening where Griffin was pulling Virgil into the otherwise empty car.

Virgil lay in a heap, panting, sweating, then lifted his head to look back at Griffin. Framed in the half-light of moon-rise, his long hair whipping back out through the opened door of the box car, Griffin swayed comfortably with the rhythm of the train.

"Well, now," he chuckled, rubbing a hand over the dark scruff that framed the lower half of his face, marred on one side by the remarkable scar. "The gang's all here."

www

"Sam."

The sound of his name drew him from the comfortable stillness of complete black into a foggy mire of gray laced with pain. The inside of his head felt like bits of a jigsaw puzzle scattered across the floor of a child's playroom.

"Sam."

One more level, a little more light, and he was forming the edges of the puzzle, pulling back a heavy curtain that cloaked memory and stifled realization. The voice calling to him was insistent, fearful… female.

"Sam!"

Sam blinked heavy-lidded eyes, trying to figure out why he was cold, why his body felt so heavy, and why, for the love of God,his head hurt so badly. He ran a thick tongue over dry lips. His mouth tasted sour, as though he'd gotten sick in the night.

"That's it, Sam. C'mon back to me."

The voice again. He knew that voice. He felt a spark of irritation at that voice. Irritation he didn't understand. He tried to lift his head, carefully easing the positional kink from his screaming neck muscles, almost afraid that if he moved too fast, his head would roll from his shoulders.

"Shake it off. It's the drugs, Sam. Shake it off, okay?"

"Wh-wha—" he tried, his mouth so dry he felt as if he were speaking through sand. "The hell?"

"Sam!"

She barked it this time. Demanding. He reacted instinctively, jerking his head up and wincing as the muscles along his back and shoulders screamed protest. Blinking rapidly, he felt the webbing of confusion clear as he looked around.

He sat on a dirty stone floor, his back against a thick iron support beam, metal cuffs binding his wrists and pulling his hands behind his back around the beam. His legs were bent in front of him, lying where he'd been dropped, his feet tingling from lack of circulation. He stretched his legs out in front of him and let his eyes roam his surroundings.

It was a cave of some sort, domed ceiling decorated with crystallized stalactites that glittered from the light of a dozen lit pillar candles. On the far wall, he saw a heavy velvet curtain pulled to reveal a bed and a large mirror, and on every available outcropping of rock, unlit candles were stacked in varying stages of melting.

"Sam?"

He looked to his right.

"Brenna?"

She was bound to a similar beam, her hands above her head, wrists trapped in heavy-looking metal clasps, T-shirt torn into a deep V between her breasts, feet bare.

"Yeah," she breathed in relief. "Yeah. You okay?"

"I… I think so."

"Do you remember what happened?"

"We, uh…" Sam looked across the room once more, "got attacked by… the Phantom of the Opera?"

Brenna's weak laugh shook out nervously. "It's that wizard," she revealed.

"You sure?" Sam looked back at her, twisting his hands painfully in his bindings.

She nodded, her loose hair falling across her face. "Positive. I've been…dreaming about the murders. I've really only seen that knife clearly, but every once in awhile…"

Sam frowned. "You've been dreaming about… what murders?"

Brenna shifted, looking up at her bound hands. "The ones here in town."

"Like… visions?"

"No," she shook her head. "Not like before. It doesn't happen when I touch someone. It happens when…"

"Your guard is down," Sam finished for her.

He remembered. He remembered the pain of the flashes that took him when he was least expecting it. Visions of death so vivid and distressing that he flinched at the memory. He pulled his legs up, trying to fold his right one beneath him, working to get his fingers on the small throwing knife Dean always insisted he keep tucked in his boot.

"Basically, yeah." Brenna hissed in sudden pain and Sam looked over. "I think these cuff things will slide if I can—ah!"

"Hey, take it easy," Sam admonished. "Do you know where he went?"

She stopped struggling against her bonds and shook her head. "I came to and saw you, but nothing else. He drugged us."

Sam clucked his pasty tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Yeah, that much I figured out, but… how did one guy get both of us… wherever we are?"

Brenna blew her hair from her eyes. "He's a wizard, Sam. Maybe he has super-strength or something. How the hell should I know?"

Sam huffed out a humorless laugh. "You sound like Dean."

Brenna groaned, dropping her chin to her chest. "Dean."

They sat in silence for a moment. Sam watched her breathe, feeling his anger toward her resurface and surge hot. He was able to maneuver his leg beneath him and grunted with effort as he fumbled for the top of his boot, his wrists straining against the metal bonds until he felt as if his bones might snap.

"I didn't think I'd ever see him again," Brenna confessed softly, her head still down.

"Didn't," Sam grimaced, pausing to take a breath, "stop you from going after him as soon as you saw him, though." He renewed his efforts as Brenna brought her head up.

"What did you expect me to do, huh? Walk away?"

"Yes!" Sam snapped, his fingers stilling as his attention turned her way. "You just walk away. Leave him alone."

"Why!" Brenna yelled back. "Why should I? I loved him, Sam."

"Yeah?" Sam shook his hair from his eyes, staring her down. "And what about now, huh? You still love him? Or was he just part of your master plan?"

"I didn't have a plan!" She shouted. "I didn't know what the hell I was doing, okay?! I was just wandering around, and I didn't have anywhere to go, and I couldn't see anything, and—"

"You want me to feel sorry for you, that it?"

"I don't fuckin' care what you feel!" Brenna bellowed.

"Fine! 'Cause I don't feel sorry for you!"

"Fine! I never asked you to!"

"Fine!"

They sat still a moment, breathing in the dank air of the cave. Sam dropped his head, then looked up, feeling his anger drain from him at the sight of tears swimming in her eyes.

"I'm sorry."

"Go to hell."

Sam winced. "I'm sorry, Brenna."

She swallowed hard, looking away, her jaw working overtime, a solitary tear reflecting the muted candlelight. Licking his lips, Sam tried again.

"I know you know about Dean," he said, his heart slamming uncomfortably against his ribs with the reality of discussing what he still didn't want to face. "I know you know what happened to… to us."

She nodded, but didn't look at him.

"I have to save him, Brenna. I can't… Without Dean, I mean…" Sam looked down. "Nothing makes sense."

He lifted his eyes again, watching her jaw tremble.

"The Kestrel Dagger… the knife this wizard has… there's a chance it can save Dean from Hell."

She looked back at him, surprise clear in her expression.

"I don't know exactly how, yet, but I found out enough that if we…" he took a shaky breath, "if somehow we can own the knife, we can control it, and use it to send something else to Hell in Dean's place."

"Something?" she sniffed.

Sam shrugged as much as his bindings would allow. "I'm thinking demon."

"You got one in mind?"

Sam allowed himself a small smile. "I haven't really thought past get knife from wizard."

Brenna regarded him silently for a moment—long enough that Sam wanted to squirm, but forced himself to hold still. The memory of Dean's reflection in her predatory eyes was still vivid and disturbing.

"What did it feel like?" she asked in a small voice, her tears still flowing, but apparently forgotten.

"What?"

"Dying."

Sam's breath caught at the base of his throat, snared in a web of surprise. No one had asked him that. Not even Dean. Once Dean brought him back, the fact that he'd actually been dead was forgotten. Erased. As if it no longer mattered. All that mattered was Hell and the avoidance of it.

"It, uh," Sam swallowed, his body twisted to the right, the backs of his fingers resting uselessly against the leather of his boot, his eyes unfocused as he stared toward Brenna, not really seeing her. Not seeing anything. "It was… dark. And…"

His voice stumbled, his words catching up with his breath, his heart plowing into his ribcage as that night flooded back to him. The pain in his shoulder pounding into his teeth, the complete exhaustion that lifted the moment he heard his brother's voice, the odd white-hot pain in his back as the knife bisected material, skin, and muscle to paralyze him, the shift of the world as he fell to his knees, the grip of Dean's arms as they wrapped around him, the sensation of falling, falling, falling—away from Dean's warmth, away from his words, away from the reassuring breath on his face.

Into darkness.

Into nothing.

"There was nothing around me."

"Did it… hurt?"

"Yeah. I mean, no. I mean…" Sam focused on Brenna's face. "I was scared. I was really scared. Dean was there, and, uh, he was holding me, but I started to fall… kinda fall inside myself. Fall into… black. And I couldn't reach back or say anything. And I felt… nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing. Cold, pain, wet, tired, relieved… it was like it… went away," Sam said, the metallic taste of the drugs at the back of his throat evaporating as the memory of that night replaced it with bile. "And then… I woke up."

"Just like that?"

Sam nodded. "Just like that. It was like… swimming to the surface of water, y'know? I just suddenly took this really big breath and… I didn't know where I was, or what had happened, and then… Dean was there. Holding me again."

Brenna sniffed, silent for a moment. "You know, I never asked to have the sight. I actually fought it for years and years. And then one day," she wiped her cheek on her straining shoulder, "just like that, I decided to hell with it. I used it. I directed it. And… it grew. I know that sounds stupid, but it's the only way I can think to describe it."

"I understand," Sam said softly, shifting upright once more, unable to reach his knife. "More than you realize."

He thought of the death visions, the terrible pain that shot through his head, the nauseating, disorienting reality that would send him to the ground with only his brother's hands as an anchor. He thought of the extraordinary feeling of a weight lifting from his heart when Dean's bullet plowed into Azazel.

And then he thought of the hollowness that weight left behind. The empty, helpless feeling of seeing nothing. Knowing nothing. Affecting nothing.

"It was always strongest around Dean," Brenna continued, her confession barely punctuated with sound and strangled tears unshed as pride overcame them. "He… overwhelmed me. It was almost like he was part of me when I touched him."

Sam looked down, feeling his face heat up, remembering the sensation of a lover's touch, the need to crawl inside of them and feel only them all around.

"But he was gone, y'know?" Brenna pulled Sam's glance up with the question. "He was gone and I was… I was dying inside. I had to do something."

"So, you found the wizard."

She nodded. "It was almost by accident. I was looking for something that could grant wishes. I found something called a trickster—"

"God," Sam exclaimed. "Don't ever—ever—tangle up with one of those."

Brenna blinked. "You've met one?"

"Yeah, and let me just say, Weirdest. Case. Ever."

"Good to know," she smiled.

Sam felt something shift inside of him at that smile. Something softening and giving way. Something allowing that he might not be the only one that needed his brother whole, alive, and there.

"Anyway, I traced wishes, and the origins of something called a djinn," she tilted her head when Sam flinched. "Another weird one?"

"Don't ask."

"Took me about three months, but I found Adoamros. There wasn't much on him, but what I found out said he was immortal because he was able to feed off of human souls."

"And you thought that could help you because…"

"It wasn't the souls part," Brenna explained, arching up and shifting against the bonds above her head until the flesh of her hands turned white. "It was the immortality part. He was powerful enough," she started to stretch her leg out, pointing her bare toes toward Sam's boot, "to find a way to live forever… maybe he was powerful enough to…"

"Give you back your sight," Sam finished, realizing what she was doing. He shifted his foot to the side as far as his knee would allow. "It's just at the top."

Brenna hooked the cuff of Sam's jeans with her toes, pulling it up. "I can almost… reach…"

A breeze stirred the candle flames. Sam froze.

"Shit," Brenna breathed.

"Hurry," Sam encouraged. "C'mon, Brenna…"

Craning his neck to see her foot as it inched beneath his pant leg, Sam could detect the barest hint of silver from the blade.

"Careful… be careful…" He shot his eyes up to her and saw that she was gripping the beam, the metal cuffs digging into her soft flesh deep enough to draw blood, her back arched away from the ground to add length to her leg. "You can do it…"

The knife slid free with a soft shink, dropping into the dirt just beyond Sam's fingers. Brenna sagged against her beam, panting, eyes closed, head back, thin trails of blood snaking down her arms.

"Interesting," came the same raspy voice Sam remembered hearing in the museum, just before his world went dark. "I've never had a couple try so hard to touch before."

Sam darted his eyes around the cavern as the voice emanated, seemingly from the rocks themselves. "Who are you?"

"Oh, who I am isn't important," the voice mocked. "It's what I am that you should worry about."

"Yeah?" Sam twisted his hands, trying to find the blade with numb fingers. "And what's that?"

When the wizard stepped into the candle light, Sam froze in honest surprise.

"I am your end," Adoamros proclaimed with a lofty flourish of his hand. "I am your confessional and your executioner in one."

The man was slight, almost mousey-looking, wire-rimmed glasses covering wide blue eyes, a mustache twitching nervously as he spoke, small hands with tapered fingers as if he'd never seen a hard day's work in his unnaturally elongated life. He wore dark jeans, the hems trimmed with orange thread, and a light blue button-down Oxford shirt. Sam half expected to see a plastic pocket protector filled with ink pens in his breast pocket.

As he descended carefully from a hidden opening behind the velvet curtain, Sam exchanged an incredulous glance with Brenna, her expression clearly echoing his own feeling of what the hell?

"You undoubtedly have questions," Adoamros continued as he hopped from the edge etched in the cave wall to land gracefully on his feet. "Luckily, I have answers."

He shoved his hand into the pocket of his jeans and drew out a small white remote. Pointing it over his shoulder, he pressed a button, releasing a cacophony of sound that Sam soon recognized as the guitar solo of a song Dean would have undoubtedly known the name of. Stalactites trembled with the bass of the music and the wizard stepped closer until he was standing between them, looking down at Sam's booted feet, and Brenna's bare toes.

"I tend to break tradition with the last two. You'll notice you're not gagged."

"Yeah, we did notice that," Sam replied. "What's with her clothes?"

Adoamros smiled, the humor not touching his eyes. "Degradation of the female is essential to keeping the male in check. You awake to see her violated while she slept; you worry for what could happen to her now, while she's exposed, vulnerable."

"I wasn't… violated!" Brenna exclaimed.

Adoamros slid his eyes to her. "Are you sure?"

"Yes!" Brenna replied, but her frown exposed her doubt.

"The way you are chained, shirt ripped, feet bare… I took you as you are. You were pliant against me."

Brenna shot an anguished look at Sam. "No…" she breathed. "You couldn't have. I would… I would know."

"You do know," Adoamros smiled. "You know, because I just told you."

"You're lying," Sam said suddenly, almost as surprised by his accusation as he was by his realization. "You're just… trying to scare her."

Adoamros turned to Sam, walking slowly around his body until he was at his bent leg. Sam closed his eyes, praying that the knife was far enough beneath his fingers that it couldn't be seen from above.

"Just her?" Adoamros asked. "What about you? Her lover? Her other half? Her soul's mate?"

He kicked Sam's leg viciously, sending waves of shock and pain through Sam's knee and causing him to cry out in shock as he quickly straightened the damaged limb, sweat beading on his upper lip and forehead as his vision swam.

"You made a mistake," Brenna shouted in response to Sam's pained scream.

"I never make mistakes." Adoamros turned and chuckled mirthlessly. "It's why I'm still alive."

Sam pressed his lips tight, breathing harshly through his nose to ward off nausea. Sparks of fire lit the darkness of his closed eyelids and he pressed his chin to his chest as he fought to regain control. For a heartbeat the music faded.

"Oh, shit," Brenna breathed, and Sam opened his eyes at her tone. It was devastation and desire. Loathing and longing.

Looking up as a new song filled the empty spaces of the cavern, he saw reflecting in the candlelight the diamond blade of the Kestrel Dagger. He shot a look to Brenna who looked back, helpless, angry, and afraid.

"Touched, you say that I am too. So much, of what you say is true…"

"The first pair is done with such need, such abandon, that there's no time to… visit," Adoamros said as he swayed to the slow thrum of the music, stroking the flat of the blade with an almost loving caress. "The second," he looked over at Sam, "is a bit easier, but the killing is no less… amorous." He shifted his glance to Brenna. "By the third, I am nearly full, almost satiated. But the spell requires six, so with you, I have… fun."

"Lucky us," Sam mumbled, wanting the wizard's wolfish eyes off of Brenna.

"Lucky," Adoamros crouched down in front of Sam, "yes. I'm so glad you see it that way."

Holding Sam's eyes with his own semi-lucid ones, Adoamros stroked the flat of the blade down the smooth plane of Sam's cheek, the diamond tip ticking his chin without drawing blood. Sam pulled air in sharply through his nose, lifting his face away from the blade as the wizard gently drew it down his throat. The razor-sharp edge of the knife easily popped the buttons from Sam's shirt with a flick of the wizard's wrist as he continued his path down Sam's body.

Sam dared a glance over at Brenna, registering the desperate twist of her hands against the metal bindings before he looked back at the almost gentle expression on the wizard's face.

"Having fun yet?" Sam ground out.

Adoamros chuckled, tilting his head as he used the blade to open Sam's shirt, exposing the muscular plane of his chest, the strain of collar bone against his skin.

"Let me tell you why there are two," the wizard said, standing, kicking Sam's legs apart, then crouching once more between them. He pulled his glasses from his face, folding them with one hand, and put them in his shirt pocket. "The human soul is practically impenetrable. It is clutched desperately in life, ripped from the body as the last breath escapes, and its journey is forever."

Sam watched the knife as the wizard tipped it one way, then another, catching the candlelight. He couldn't pull his eyes from the edge of the blade, remembering Dean's report of the crime scenes, remembering the paper-fine slices into the victim's skin. He felt his heart hammer against his ribs, trying to keep the fear from his face, from his eyes as the wizard continued to talk.

"The soul is not relinquished willingly. It must be taken."

"Shows what you know," Brenna spat.

Adoamros lifted an eyebrow, then stood.

"Brenna," Sam warned, shaking his head.

Adoamros stepped over Sam's leg, moving with a dancer's grace in time to the music as he approached Brenna. Sam blinked with a sickening realization: it was a performance for him. A show. As if someone were watching. Sam looked around the room, trying to see into the shadowed alcoves of the cave.

"The power of immortality comes at great sacrifice," the wizard intoned, watching Brenna as if deciding where to bite first. "Taking your soul will eliminate a piece of me."

Brenna's body tightened, pulling away from the wizard's approach. "Well, isn't that too bad."

"I will take your soul," Adoamros predicted, "and I will have your lover's. He will give it willingly after witnessing your suffering." Using the toe of his shoe, he edged Brenna's stiff legs apart, crouching between her knees, then leaning forward with the balance of a cat, inhaling as he moved his face up her chest and to her throat.

The music thrummed in the background, but Sam could still hear Brenna's strangled whimper as the wizard closed in.

"Hey!" he shouted.

"You see," Adoamros said, his mouth at Brenna's neck, his voice somehow audible to Sam, "the spell is specific: one must be the weapon, the other the wound. The pain is felt by both, but while one bleeds the other is helpless and to save sanity, pleads for it to simply be over."

He pulled away, slowly reaching for Brenna's torn shirt as she tried to shrink further from his fingers.

"And then… it is," he continued, "and the weapon is forsaken. And their soul is plucked from them with little effort."

"You arrogant bastard," Brenna gasped. "You're so clueless it's almost funny."

At that Adoamros straightened, his hand hovering over the rip in Brenna's shirt. Sam pulled against his shackles, trying to find the knife that he'd hastily hidden in the dirt behind him. His gaze pinned to Brenna's fierce face, he watched with awe and terror as her eyes widened.

"Not only is he not my soul mate," she proclaimed, "but you're sadly mistaken about the soul."

"What are you saying?" Adoamros' voice grew hard, a burst of discordant sound against the hypnotic backbeat of music.

"A soul can be sacrificed, can be given willingly to save another," Brenna said, her small hands clenched in fists, her body trembling.

"Brenna…" Sam called, wanting her eyes on him, wanting to pull her away from the edge he could literally feel her teetering on.

"You can't have any soul you want."

"I can!" Adoamros roared. "I will take until I have enough. I will take until I know enough. I will take until he lives!"

With that, he reached for her, gripping the tattered cotton of her shirt, skin touching skin, contact made. Sam gasped as Brenna cried out in shock, horror, and pain, the pupils of her eyes overtaking the golden irises, her skin paling at what she saw inside the wizard's mind.

"Brenna!"

www

Dean climbed to his feet. "I want some answers."

His eyes quickly adjusted to the wan moonlight captured in the box car.

Griffin raised an eyebrow. "Gonna have to ask a question, then."

Dean took a step to the side, watching warily as Griffin moved opposite him, creating a tense circling motion as their feet planted in an effort to remain standing, rocking with the motion of the train.

"I want to know how you found out about this mine."

Griffin shrugged. "I looked it up. Town's got a library."

"You call another hunter? Bobby?" He bit off the name as if the sound of it left a bad taste in his mouth.

"Bobby's got nothing to do with this."

Dean felt a shift of relief at that, wanting the older man to have a break after the hell he'd been through with the haunting dreams of his late wife. Rolling his lips in against his teeth, Dean darted his eyes to Virgil. The burly ex-paramedic stood in the open door of the box car, his back to them, facing the swiftly-passing scenery. Looking back at Griffin, Dean saw the other man's hand slip to his inside coat pocket.

Reacting on instinct, Dean reached back and grabbed his .45, pulling it free and leveling it at Griffin. "Don't."

Griffin jerked, pulling his hand away from his coat, empty. Virgil turned around at the bark of Dean's voice, but remained silent as he watched the pissing contest.

"Just reaching for a notebook, Winchester," Griffin explained, his hands up.

"Yeah, well," Dean ticked the barrel of the gun toward Griffin's jacket. "We'll see about that. Pull it out. Two fingers!"

Griffin reached in, using his index finger and thumb, and removed a small black notebook. He held it flat in his hand, keeping his arms up where Dean could see.

"You wanna point that thing somewhere else?"

"Not really."

Griffin rolled his eyes. "You're a real piece of work, y'know that?"

Dean remained silent, watching, unwilling to be caught off guard without back-up, unbalanced, uneasy, and if he were honest with himself, afraid.

"I could have left you back there," Griffin pointed out. "Didn't have to pull you onto the train."

"Nope," Dean said, brows pulled close over the bridge of his nose. "But, then again, you need my Latination…"

"Isn't that something you guys should just, like, know?" Virgil spoke up.

The hunters ignored him.

"Tell me how you knew where to go," Dean demanded. "Tell me we're not walking into a trap."

"We're not walking into a trap," Griffin replied, his voice devoid of sarcasm. "I told you, I've been tracking this wizard since Beck died. That bastard summoned the thing that caused my brother's death. I wasn't letting it get away. There's not a lot out there on him, but there's enough. If you know where to look."

"And you did?" Dean's eyebrow bounced up in an inverted V, incredulity plain on his face.

"You don't live as long as I have in this job and not learn a few tricks, Winchester."

"So, you know who the wizard is?"

"I don't have a name, exactly, but I've seen him."

Dean dropped his gun in surprise. "Why didn't you say so befo—"

Before he could finish the sentence, Griffin body slammed him, driving him to the floor, knocking the air from his lungs. His gun tumbled from loose fingers. Rolling free, Griffin reached for the .45 while Dean curled in on himself, retching dryly and gasping for air. Through fuzzy vision, Dean saw Griffin's fingers slap the bare wood of the box car floor, coming up empty.

Coughing, wheezing, desperate for air, Dean rolled to his back, his chest heaving. Over the ring in his ears, he dimly heard Virgil's rough voice demand for Griffin to just back the hell up and sit the fuck down. Blinking, Dean tried to roll to his knees, feeling gentle hands guide him to a semi-seated position, encouraging slow, deep breaths.

"Didn't do your back much good," were the first clear words Dean comprehended.

"Huh?"

He felt Virgil probe the wounds at his shoulder. "Brenna's goop did a good job, but you need to lay off the WWF moves for awhile."

Dean coughed again, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. "What the hell, man?" He looked directly at Griffin who was sitting with his knees up, arms wrapped around his legs, a scowl at home on his face.

"You pointed a gun at me," Griffin mumbled.

"So?"

"Nobody points a gun at me and gets away with it," Griffin replied.

Dean paused a moment, then shook his head. "You gotta be kidding me," he muttered.

"Listen, Winchester, I—"

"No, you listen—"

"Both of you!" Virgil shouted, the last man standing. "Shut the hell up!"

Dean closed his mouth with an audible click, looking up at Virgil in surprise. The big man took off his ever-present red baseball hat, rubbed the heel of his hand against his forehead, then jammed the hat back on.

"You're gonna listen to me right now," he said pointing Dean's gun first at one hunter, then at the other. "You're here for the same reason. You lost someone you love. You," he pointed at Griffin, "just want revenge. That's cool. I get that. You pretty much admitted that to get what you want you need him, so how about leaving him the hell alone for once."

"Yeah!" Dean chimed in.

"And you," Virgil turned to Dean, "are just being an idiot. You want Sam back in one piece? Quit poking the bear, man. Use him, get your brother home. Then go back to doing… whatever it is you do."

Dean frowned silently at Virgil, wanting to snap back, but feeling the quiet conscience of his brother put an invisible hand on his arm, warning him off.

"Why are you here, Cochise?" Griffin demanded.

Virgil slipped the clip from Dean's gun, drawing back the bolt and ejecting the chambered bullet, catching it in the palm of his hand. He handed the empty gun to Dean, then handed the clip to Griffin.

"Because I lost someone I love, too." He looked at Dean, shoving the loose bullet into the pocket of his cargo pants. "And I aim to get her back."

Dean felt his gut tighten at those words, his skin pulling close to the bones of his face, his heart stuttering. He had no claim on her. She made her own choices. But for all intents and purposes, Brenna was his. As he looked at Virgil, however, he saw the same sentiment reflected in the other man's eyes.

Dean and Griffin stood, staring at the pieces of the dismantled weapon they'd each been given. Dean looked up, meeting his adversary's eyes, unwilling to be the first to call truce, but feeling this was the moment to do so.

"Hey," Griffin spoke up suddenly. "This is our stop."

He moved to the open door, followed closely by Virgil and Dean.

"Dude… the train's not stopping," Dean said warily.

Griffin put the clip in his pocket, then gripped the doorway, leaning out. "Never said anything about the train stopping," he called, swinging free of the box car, landing in a heap and rolling to a halt.

"Dammit," Dean groaned.

"On three?" Virgil suggested.

Dean tightened his jaw, looking down at the rapidly moving ground, then up at Virgil.

"DAMMIT!"

He cursed, swinging out and dropping, feeling the ground rush up to slap his legs with a harsh crack that shook through his spine as he rolled, clacking his teeth shut on his tongue and bouncing his brain against his skull.

He never saw Virgil jump. He didn't hear the train pass. He was alone in the dark. And in the distance, he saw red eyes mocking him, the edges tilting up in a knowing smile of seduction and triumph. He worked to back away from those eyes and felt the very real sensation of flesh gripping his hand and tapping his cheek.

"Dean," called a vaguely familiar voice.

"Leggoame," he slurred, trying to roll away, dizzy, disoriented.

"Open your eyes, Winchester."

Dean obeyed, reality crashing against him with the force of a cyclone. He sucked in a lungful of air, pushing against Griffin's help, bracing his trembling body by the palms of his hands against the wiry grass he lay on.

"Lemme go," he tried again.

"Tuck and roll, man," Griffin chuckled, standing up. "You're lucky you're still in one piece, the way you pile-drove yourself into the ground."

Dean pressed the back of his hand against his mouth, fighting back the very real possibility of throwing up on Griffin's boots. His head spun as his vision worked to catch up to the miniscule movements of his eyes. Mentally he checked himself: everything hurt, nothing was broken.

"I'll try to remember that the next time I jump off a speeding train," he muttered, winning the battle against bile. "Where's Sinatra?"

"Here," Virgil spoke up, trying to reshape the bill of his cap. "Turned the damn thing around backwards," he explained. "Not a good idea."

He reached down and gave Dean a hand up, keeping his grip surreptitiously on Dean's arm until he was able to regain his balance.

"This way," Griffin said, pointing. "Weapons check. Silver Stag Bowie, Ka-Bar, and clip for a .45. Winchester?"

Dean shook his head. "Now you're just showing off."

"You don't think we should know what we have going for us?"

Dean shrugged. "You can tell a lot about a man by the size of his sticker."

Virgil snickered.

"You going in naked, Winchester?" Griffin challenged.

Sighing, Dean replied through teeth gritted in annoyance, "Freakin' empty 1911 and a Hibben thrower." Instinctively, he rolled his ankle inside his boot, feeling the solid support of the six-inch blade John had given him for his sixteenth birthday. There had been two in the set, each inscribed with his initials. He was rarely without one in his possession.

"That it?"

Dean stepped away from Virgil's supportive hand. "Left fist, right fist, what more do you need?"

Griffin moved in front of Dean to lead the way. "What about you, there, Cappie?"

"Think I prefer Sinatra." Virgil huffed.

"Where'd that come from anyway?" Griffin asked, skirting a tree that suddenly loomed in the darkness.

"Sam," Dean and Virgil replied together.

"Thanks," Griffin muttered. "That clears it right up."

Virgil patted the pockets of his cargo pants. "I have bandages, a tourniquet, sulfur—"

"Sulfur?" Dean stopped, turning. Griffin mimicked his movement.

"You need to stop bleeding fast? Packet of sulfur."

"Huh." The hunters replied in unison, returning to their trek.

"Sam have anything on him?" Griffin asked, his voice brisk and business-like.

"Always carries my other Hibben in his boot."

"What about the chick?"

"No," Virgil replied.

"She, uh… may not need a weapon," Dean revealed quietly.

"What do you mean?" Virgil asked.

"Nothing, except…" Dean looked back at the paramedic. "If her sight is coming back… that wizard may have more than he bargained for."

"She's blind?" Griffin asked.

"Forget it," Dean waved a hand at him as the ground turned rocky and they emerged between two mounds of earth and gravel, overgrown with weeds that reflected silver in the moonlight. Ahead of them, he could see a chain link fence, rusted and mangled, covering the semi-boarded up entrance to what appeared to be a mine shaft.

"This can't be it," Virgil spoke up, echoing Dean's thoughts.

"This is it," Griffin nodded.

"No one's been through that for years, man," Dean argued. "No way he's been pulling victims in and out."

Griffin pointed up. "He has if he used the elevator."

Dean and Virgil looked up at the three-story, rickety-looking wooden tower that housed the hand-pulled elevator long ago used to carry miners to and from the different levels of the shaft. The entrance to the elevator tower edged up to a rolling edge of hillside.

"Oh," the duo responded.

"C'mon," Griffin headed toward the entrance.

Dean followed, ignoring the protests of his back with each purposeful step. The beginning of a headache teased his temples as he clenched his teeth against the discomfort of his body. The hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention as the milky light of the waxing moon tossed shadows across their path leaving him to wonder what awaited them in the darkness of the mine. "Wait," he reached out for Griffin's shoulder.

"Anyone got a light?"

"Scared of the dark, Winchester?" Griffin mocked.

"No, just what it's hiding," Dean returned.

"I have matches," Virgil offered.

"You have your lighter?" Dean asked Griffin.

"How did you know I—"

"Dude, you smoke like a chimney, hand it over."

He pulled his knife from his boot, cutting off the edge of his too-big shirt so that the ragged edges barely touched the top of his waist band. As he slid his knife home, he saw Virgil casting about on the ground, coming up with a piece of lead pipe.

"Will this work?"

"Sure, all we need now is the rope and the candlestick," Griffin cracked.

Dean ignored him, nodding at Virgil. "Better than nothing, man." He tied his shirt around the top of the pipe, wadding it at the top like an over-sized Q-tip. "We'll wait until there's no moonlight left."

Virgil took the make-shift torch from Dean as Griffin pulled the rust-weakened chain link fence away from the wooden door. As the burly hunter moved for the barricade, something clicked in the back of Dean's memory.

"Dean… there's a door back here…"

"Wait—"

"Chill out, Winchester," Griffin barked, "you want to get to your brother or not?"

As the big hunter shoved the wooden barricade roughly to his right, the bone-chilling sound of a spring-released trigger slid across the silence. Moving without thought, without preamble, and on pure instinct, Dean reached out and pushed Griffin away from the entrance just as a strategically placed cross-bow released its arrow.

Dean twisted as he moved, feeling the tug of the arrow at his torn shirt, landing on his knees in the dirt and gravel.

"Holy…" Virgil breathed. "You okay?"

"Yeah…" Dean replied hesitantly, looking down at his side. The arrow had turned his shirt into little more than a pair of sleeves, but it hadn't creased his skin. He stood, then looked over at Griffin. "You?"

The swarthy hunter sat where he'd landed in the dirt looking at Dean with disbelief. Blinking, he simply nodded before pushing himself to his feet.

"How… how'd you know?"

Dean lifted an eyebrow, clapping Griffin on the shoulder. "Turns out, I'm more than just a pretty face."

"You two ready to go, or what?" Virgil asked nervously, eyeing the darkened entrance.

"Just be careful," Dean cautioned. "This guy does not want anyone in here."

"And here I thought he'd welcome us with open arms," Griffin grumbled, stepping into the dark, Dean and Virgil close behind.

www

"Release me!" Adoamros demanded, his body shaking as Brenna cried out at the images assaulting her.

"Let go of her!" Sam yelled. "Just let her go and it'll stop!"

Surprisingly, Adoamros complied, crab-crawling away from Brenna as in the background Eddie Vedder's growl proclaimed, ironically, that he was still alive. The wizard looked visibly shaken, backing away from them as Sam twisted to face Brenna as best he could.

"Brenna, hey," he tried, licking his lips.

She sat slumped against the beam, her shoulders appearing as though they were straining to their very limit as her body sagged against the metal shackles. He could tell she was crying, though she didn't make a sound. The tremble of her body gave her away.

"Brenna, c'mon, look at me."

"Sam," she whimpered. "It's back."

"Yeah, I kinda figured that," Sam said, darting his eyes at the retreating wizard. The small man was muttering to himself, wringing his hands and moving carefully from candle to candle, lighting them one by one. "Tell me what you saw."

Brenna lifted her head, her eyes red-rimmed, her face tear-streaked. He saw that she was no longer crying, but the stark despair in her expression made him feel like begging her to begin again, just to wash that look away.

"He had a brother," she choked out. "A long time ago."

Sam looked back at the wizard, frowning as he seemed to be arguing with someone out of sight. "What happened?"

"They were… they…" Brenna licked her lips nervously, wincing as she shifted against her restraints. "He… really loved his brother, Sam."

Sam looked back at her, for a moment not comprehending. She stared at him, silently, waiting while realization crept in.

"You mean… oh. Oh! Eww." Sam folded his lips down in disgust.

"I saw him—the brother—dead. Bloody. I saw him," she nodded toward Adoamros, "digging a grave. I saw…" she swallowed hard, "him… inhale the souls. I saw him kill, Sam. Over and over. I felt it. He… it's like a drug to him."

"Fantastic," Sam sagged against the beam.

"I was wrong, Sam," Brenna whispered under the rhythm of the music. "I was wrong."

"Wrong about what?"

"I don't want this—I was wrong to want this," Brenna sobbed dryly. "I was so wrong… look what I've done."

Sam frowned, leaning toward her. "You haven't done anything, Brenna."

Brenna brought her head up, devastation clear in her eyes.

"What you don't know won't kill you… what you don't know won't kill you…"

The music chanted with emotion around them, seeming to cloak them from the wizard's aggravated argument with his invisible counterpart.

"I brought this on us, Sam," she whispered, her voice so vacant he had to watch her lips to understand her words. "I dreamt it, I knew. And I didn't stop it. I didn't…"

"And now," Adoamros turned toward them with a flourish, the showman once more, half of the candles in the cavern lit, casting shadows on his pallid countenance and illuminating the insanity in his eyes. "We choose. Who will be my final weapon?"

www

"Dude, this guy has taken a walk right off the map," Dean muttered as Virgil lit the make-shift torch.

Blinking in the wake of the smoke from his shirt, Dean peered at the etchings marked on the mine walls: sigils and signs, half-completed spells and incantations, writing that grew less controlled as they pressed on. A brilliant mind gone mad with time.

"He mainlines human souls in exchange for immortality," Griffin pointed out dryly. "You thought he'd, what, listen to reason?"

"Man, you look like Bruce Banner after he comes down from the Hulk," Virgil remarked, glancing at Dean.

Dean smirked, glancing sideways at the red-capped man. "You know your comics?"

Virgil lifted a shoulder. "Gotta do something to pass the time."

"Marvel or DC?"

"Marvel all the way, man," Virgil grinned.

Dean returned the grin, raising his hand for a high-five. "All right!"

"You two kids ready to keep moving? 'Cause I—"

"Stop! Don't move," Dean suddenly called out.

Griffin froze mid-step. "What?"

"Look down," Virgil choked out. Grimacing, Griffin obeyed.

"Where the hell did he get a land mine?"

Dean thought of his father's storage unit and licked his lips, moving carefully past Griffin's frozen form. "Not that hard if you know where to look. I'll lead the way. Walk in my footsteps."

www

At first Sam didn't recognize the muttering as Latin. The wizard spoke so rapidly it sounded as if he were muttering in German. But as he approached, a word surfaced, then another, and Sam felt his stomach muscles tense as he recognized the rhythm of a spell.

"Stop!" Brenna cried as Adoamros approached Sam, the diamond blade of the Kestrel dagger gleaming in the candle light. "You chose wrong, I'm telling you."

"If I chose wrong," Adoamros purred, eyes on Sam's bare chest, "why do you protest so vehemently?"

"I'm telling you, he's not the one! He's not your weapon!"

"Brenna, shut up!"

"No, Sam, I—"

Adoamros' first slice was quick, across Sam's upper arm, below the shoulder, above the bicep. Sam jerked in surprise at the movement, feeling nothing at first, then exhaled in pained surprise as the burn of separated skin and nerves singed his system, causing him to look down.

No blood. A slice in his shirt sleeve, a long, thin wound. No blood. Panicked, Sam looked over at Brenna, aware in his periphery that the wizard was doing the same. She hung from her bonds, sweaty, angry, arms stained with dried blood from her earlier efforts, but nothing new.

"No…" Adoamros frowned. "No, I can't have been wrong."

www

"Ah! Shit!" Dean jerked, nearly dropping the torch.

"What?" Virgil stepped up, grabbing the lead pipe from him.

Dean reached for his upper arm, pulling his hand back bloody. "Son of a bitch. I think I… brushed against another booby trap or something."

"You okay?" Virgil asked, concerned. "Should I take a look?"

"Nah," Dean shook his head, gripping his arm in confusion and a fair amount of discomfort. "It's just a scratch. Just… watch the walls, okay?"

"Keep moving," Griffin commanded. "We gotta be getting close. I can smell the bastard."

www

"You guessed wrong, pal," Sam said. "Looks like you've lost your touch. No one's bleeding tonight—ah!"

Adoamros sliced again, along the lower part of Sam's abdomen, just under his ribs. The pain was enough to suck the air from his lungs, then slam it back full-force with a choked cough. The wizard's Latin ritual increased in volume, but Sam was beyond caring what the words meant. The music beat a harsh taboo against his skull as he shot a desperate look at Brenna, who stared back, face distraught, eyes destroyed, lips trembling.

"Oh, God," Sam whispered as the wound in his side remained bloodless, and Brenna's T-shirt stayed stain-free. "Oh, God, no…"

www

Dean's cry of pain caught all three by surprise. Without warning, he stumbled, falling to his knees, one hand shooting to the ground to balance him, the other gripping his side as fire shot across his belly.

"Dean?" Virgil turned to him, embers from the slowly dying torch falling on the ground around him.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean muttered, lifting his hand to see it painted red with his own blood.

"Lemme see," Virgil handed Griffin the torch, kneeling in front of Dean.

Griffin moved the amber light along the walls where Dean had been walking. "I can't see anything sticking out…"

"That was no booby trap," Virgil muttered, lifting Dean's tattered shirt.

Dean tightened his stomach muscles against the sharp jabs of pain that radiated through him as Virgil probed his wounded side.

"Uh… I can't…"

"What?" Dean breathed, blinking rapidly to ward off the blackness that had threatened to swamp him after the unexpected stab of pain cut him down.

"There's no… cut. No wound." Virgil looked up. "There's nothing there."

Dean looked down at his side. "What do you mean, nothing? I'm bleeding like a—"

"I know you're bleeding," Virgil said, digging in his thigh pocket for a bandage. "But I can't tell from where."

Realization dawned hot and fast, bringing Dean's eyes up to meet Griffin's in an instinct of hunter seeking out hunter. "Aw, fuck," he breathed. "FUCK!"

Virgil pressed the bandage against Dean's side, grimacing as the white started to flood pink almost immediately. "What?"

"It's Sam," Griffin said.

"What?" Virgil looked over his shoulder at the other hunter.

"The wizard. He's working over Sam," Griffin elaborated.

Dean pushed to his feet, shoving away from Virgil with strength born of desperation, moving down the ever-narrowing passageway.

"Wait!" Griffin turned, hurrying after him.

"He's got my brother," Dean tossed back, heat from his wounds fueling his progress.

"Stop!"

Dean flinched at the barked order, turning around and advancing on Griffin until he was able to shove him backwards with the flat of his hand. "I'm not losing him, you understand? Do I make myself clear?!"

"You go in there half cocked and you'll just end up losing everybody," Griffin yelled back, an unexpected voice of reason.

"I know what I'm doing," Dean started to turn again, and Griffin grabbed his wounded arm, causing him to cry out.

"You're walking wounded, man. We'll get him out, but—"

Dean shoved Griffin away roughly, barely registering the light dying around them. "You expect me to believe you actually give a damn about my brother's life? After all the shit you've pulled? You're just in this for your own revenge!"

"Because I had a brother, too!" Griffin grabbed the collar of Dean's shirt, pulling him up close until their faces were inches apart. "I had one and I screwed up and I lost him. You don't know what that feels like, so don't—"

"The hell I don't!" Dean shrugged loose. "He's already died on me once, man. I've only got one soul to give, I can't lose him again."

They stood in silence for several heartbeats as Dean's words penetrated the rapidly growing darkness and the material on the lead pipe burned down to embers. Dean and Griffin stood facing off, panting from anger born of pain.

"Are you saying… you're a dead man walking?" Griffin said in a low, forced-calm voice.

Dean licked his lips. "Yes."

"Holy shit," Virgil breathed. "I didn't know you could do that."

"What you don't know could choke a—"

"Stop it," Dean interrupted Griffin's insult. "Just… just stop it."

Something shifted in Griffin's eyes, a softening that Dean might've missed if the shadows of the torch had slid left instead of right. In that moment, Dean knew he'd gained an ally. He turned, moving back down the darkening tunnel, hoping the other two would follow, hearing the clink-shft of the crossbow two seconds too late.

Griffin's meaty hand slammed Dean's upper arm, shoving him to the side and into the crumbling dirt wall. He heard the big hunter cry out and just before the torch burned out completely, he saw an arrow protruding from Griffin's upper thigh.

"Virge?"

"Dean, get over here. Now." The former paramedic's voice left no room for argument and offered Dean a path through the darkness.

Dean grunted as his side burned with the motion of crawling across the dank tunnel floor. He felt along the ground in the pitch dark, finding a boot, then a leg, feeling his way up Griffin's body until his fingers tripped over the arrow. Griffin cried out and swore.

"Easy," Virgil soothed. "Take it easy, man. We'll get you fixed up, okay?"

The stream of curses Griffin sewed together in reply would have made a sailor blush. Dean reached into the dark, swimming his hand around until he felt Virgil's shoulder.

"I'm here."

"I need light," Virgil replied, finding Dean's hands with his, unfolding Dean's fingers and slapping both his book of matches and Griffin's lighter into his palm.

Dean flicked the Zippo on first, the flame shooting up and illuminating a small circle of black with its amber glow. Dean held the lighter over Griffin's leg, swallowing as he registered the deeply-embedded shaft.

"Had to go and be a hero, huh?" He joked.

"Well…" Griffin gasped. "I figured you… usually have… that ginormatron watching your back…"

"Okay, Griffin, hold still," Virgil ordered.

Dean watched as the paramedic braced the arrow shaft and broke it off near Griffin's thigh. He winced in sympathy as Griffin bit his lip to keep from crying out.

"Why didn't you pull it out?" Dean asked.

The lighter sputtered. Dean flicked it back on, adjusting his grip as the flame heated the pad of his thumb.

"It hit the femoral artery," Virgil said. "He's bleeding bad. Too bad. If I pulled it out, he wouldn't make it out of this tunnel."

"Still here," Griffin grunted.

Virgil pulled a packet of what looked like instant oatmeal from his cargo pants pocket, ripping it open with his teeth and shaking the powdered substance over Griffin's wounded leg.

"Ah! Son of a BITCH!" Griffin cried out, his back arching up as he clenched his fists against the obvious pain.

The familiar, nauseating smell of sulfur twisted Dean's stomach just as the lighter went out once more. Dean flicked it once, twice, then shook it.

"Empty," he announced, lighting one of Virgil's matches with his thumbnail. The light was smaller, but it was better than nothing. "What do you want to do?"

Virgil sat back on his heels, pulling in a breath. "Everything is screaming at me to get him the hell out of here or he's a dead man. But… you're wounded, too, and Brenna… and Sam…"

Dean sucked in his bottom lip, rolling it against his teeth with the tip of his tongue.

"Winchester."

The match burned down to Dean's fingertips, but before he could light another, Griffin's grip found his hand in the dark.

"Yeah."

"You have to finish this, man."

Dean exhaled, then pulled a slow breath into his lungs, searching for energy in that motion.

"You did it once before," Griffin said, his voice tight with pain. "You came through, you and Sam. I didn't want to admit it. I didn't want you to have been right, but you were."

"Dude, don't go all final words on me, here."

"Shut up a minute. I ain't dying. Not here in this tunnel. Not now."

"Well, that's certainly a relief," Dean said dryly. He felt something gathering at the base of his throat, something tight and tense.

"You do this thing. Do it, 'cause… 'cause I need to give something back to my brother."

"There was never a choice, man," Dean said, reaching across in the dark to find Virgil's shoulder once more. "Here," he said, feeling down Virgil's arm for his hand. "Take these." He pushed the matches back in Virgil's grip.

"How are you going to—"

"Hey, I'm making this up as I go along," Dean said. "Besides, if there are more booby traps out there, those matches aren't going to save me. Just… watch out for the land mines."

"Land mines. Right." Virgil nodded.

Between them, they were able to get Griffin on his feet.

"Dean," Virgil said.

"I'll bring her back," Dean promised.

"I know you will," Virgil said. "I just…" he took a breath. "It's always been her choice."

Dean was silent a moment. "Let's worry about that later."

"Later," Virgil agreed as he steered Griffin back the way they came.

Dean watched as a match was lit, the light fading rapidly as the duo moved in halting, lumbering steps back down the mine tunnel.

"Well," Dean whispered to himself as darkness settled around him like a cloak. "This was a great idea."

He reached out for the dirt wall, pressing his arm tight against his burning side and made his way further down the black passageway. He shuffled his feet, searching for the edges of land mines, crawled his fingers through the dirt and along the rock of the wall. The darkness felt palpable, as if it had greedy fingers reaching out to pluck at his hair, stroke his cheek, whisper in his ear.

He'd never truly been afraid of the dark, just all the things the dark kept hidden. And he'd seen enough of those things to know that there was a purpose for hiding. He tried to take a deep breath, finding some solace in the fact that no new wounds had appeared since the last one.

"Maybe he's not hurting you anymore, Sammy," he said into the nothing. "Maybe you got loose. Got Brenna out of there. Saved the day. Big damn hero."

The air was starting to feel thicker, as if the blackness gave it texture and weight, making it harder to pull into his body, filter through his over-worked lungs, fuel his oxygen-starved body. Panting, he resumed his conversation with Sam.

"You… uh, you probably told him he was full of shit, didn't you, Sammy? Called him out for the… the freak he is. Not a freak like us, though, right? More of a bites-heads-off-bats and eats-live-chickens freak. We're the good kind of freaks, Sammy…"

Pausing in his ramble, Dean suddenly realized he could hear music. He moved further down the tunnel, straining to hear. Music. Someone was playing loud music.

Loud emo music.

"What is with this town and its weird music fetish…" his voice faded as the pieces of the puzzle clicked together in his brain. "Wait… no way… "

He continued forward, squinting his eyes as he realized he could almost see the ground in front of him. A soft glow of amber light drew him onward.

www

"You okay?" Brenna whispered as the wizard stumbled away, pressing the heels of his hands to his temples and mumbling to himself in a tangled mixture of Latin and English.

"No," Sam shook his head, feeling his body tremble with a bone-deep cold, his skin hot as though he were feverish. "No, Brenna, it's Dean."

"You don't know that," Brenna shook her head roughly, her features pale with denial.

"It's Dean," Sam spat, turning fierce eyes on her. "He's coming for us, you know he is."

"The spell just isn't working—"

"Yes. It. IS." Sam growled, needing her to stop. Needing her to just stop. "He's out there, and he's bleeding for me."

Brenna pressed her lips together, her eyes hot and helpless as the wizard's music increased in volume. They looked across the cave to find the small man pacing up by his curtained area, arms out from his sides, hair wild from where he had been running his hands through it.

Sam heard him exclaiming, "I've never been wrong. Not once. And you led me to them. You. LED. ME. TO. THEM!"

"Who is he talking to?" Brenna stage-whispered to him over the music.

"Jacob Marley," Sam retorted. "How the hell should I know?"

"Don't put your life in someone's hands, they're bound to steal it away. Don't hide your mistakes 'cause they'll find you, burn you…"

"Can you reach your knife?" Brenna asked.

"I'm trying."

"He's gonna come back," Brenna said anxiously.

"Not helping," Sam grunted.

"Sam—"

"How did you get in here?!"

Sam and Brenna looked up simultaneously at the wizard's exclamation. Sam felt his stomach plummet as his burning eyes lit on the bloody, swaying image of his brother pushing through the curtained opening just inside the wizard's alcove about six feet above them.

"I don't freakin' believe it," he heard Dean exclaim. "It's the goddamn M. E.!"

Sam gaped.

"I did not give you permission to be here!" Adoamros yelled, raising the knife above his head and lunging for Dean.

"DEAN!" Sam yelled just as Dean thrust his arms up to ward off the crazed attack. Sam felt his body tighten, instinctively jerking and ducking as Dean struggled with the small, but powerful wizard.

Sam felt a dizzying effect of vertigo as Dean's foot slipped on the crumbling ledge, his body obviously weakened by his journey to find them. He heard Brenna gasp as Dean fought for balance, then he cried out as his brother lost the fight, slipping from the edge and slamming against a smaller ledge positioned like a stair-step below the wizard's alcove. Sam winced as Dean's head cracked against the cave wall, then flinched as his brother hit the dirt floor and rolling to a rest near Sam's feet, completely, unnaturally still.

"Dean?" Sam called, his voice weak, his body tense as he watched for the reassuring movement of his brother's chest. Dean' face was turned from Sam, but when he saw Dean breathe, Sam shuddered out a trembling breath.

"Now," the wizard exclaimed, "at last I have them."

He jumped down, his feline grace returning as he regained his balance. He pulled out his remote, returning the volume to its previous level as he approached Dean's vulnerable form.

"If you want to get out alive, run for your life. If you want to get out alive run for..."

"Stay away from him," Sam bellowed, straining against the metal restraints.

Adoamros laughed softly. "My boy, all I will do is position him. It is you that will end up taking his life."

"Stop!" Brenna begged. "Please, don't… you don't have to do this."

Adoamros gripped Dean's shoulders, lifting him with strength masquerading beneath a façade of fragility. Sam felt a muscle in his jaw tighten as Dean's head dropped back, limp, lifeless. The wizard propped Dean against another support beam, then frowned.

"Seems I may have run out of shackles," he said as if they were short a napkin at a tea party. "No matter," he shrugged, turning from them. "Rope will suffice at this juncture."

"Sam," Brenna whispered. "No matter what happens, get Dean out of here."

Sam tore his eyes from Dean's bloody, sagging form to look at her. "What?!"

"Just… please, trust me, okay?"

"Whatever you're thinking, stop."

Brenna looked over at Dean and Sam watched her lips tremble, her mouth parting as if she was going to say something, but the wizard returned, crouching in front of Dean and binding his hands tightly. Sam felt his heart skip painfully as Dean slid to the side.

"Now then," the wizard said, almost brightly, standing and turning to Sam. "Where were we?"

www

It was interesting the clarity that came with complete pain. The fog that had cloaked his immediate perception lifted as his brain fought to remember where he was, how he'd gotten there, and why his body was on fire.

At first, he thought he'd choke on the dry insides of his throat, his cough a weak rattle of air, but then he tried to open his eyes and realized they were suddenly too big for his head.

"Stay away from him!"

Brenna…

Her voice compelled him to pry his heavy lids up, fighting the urge to gag as his side stabbed him with a lingering pain intent on keeping him company for awhile. Blinking burning eyes, Dean saw a man, diminutive in stature, but powerful in position, approaching his brother, the diamond-edge blade of a knife poised and ready to slice.

Why the hell didn't I take one of Griffin's knives…

"Silence, woman," the man muttered. "You are no longer necessary. Remember that."

"The goddamn M.E.," Dean coughed out, diverting the wizard's attention. "Carter, you sly sonuvabitch."

"Dean," Sam said, relief and worry warring for dominance in his voice.

"So, you decided to join us after all," Adoamros smiled. "How nice."

Dean simply stared at him. "Perfect plan, huh? Hide in plain sight, doctor the… autopsy reports…"

Adoamros turned back to Sam.

"How'd you keep fooling the cops?"

"People see who and what they want, when they want," Adoamros replied.

Before Dean could distract him with another question, he jerked his wrist, cutting Sam's upper chest opposite the protective tattoo.

Dean and Sam shouted in simultaneous pain, Dean's head dropping low as blood blossomed, Sam's head falling back as the pain abated.

"No!" Brenna cried, horror plain in her voice. "You don't have to do this! I can help you."

Dean drew his head up, staring hard at her.

"Don't," he barked, his voice ragged.

She ignored him. "Listen to me!"

Adoamros tilted his head at Sam as though choosing a cut of beef.

"Here," he said, slicing Sam's forearm, "and here," cutting a line across Sam's ribs.

"Son of a bitch!" Dean gasped while Sam's litany of curses dripped as crimson as the blood that saturated what was left of Dean's shirt. The brothers panted, pain spinning Dean's head, blood loss making him shiver.

"It won't work!" Brenna yelled. "You can't have his soul!"

Adoamros looked over at her. "What do you mean?"

"Brenna," Dean gasped, barely able to raise his head. "Don't… please…"

"His soul doesn't belong to him anymore," Brenna said, pulling her legs close, surreptitiously attempting to protect her exposed body as the wizard took a step away from Sam. "He gave it up. He gave it up to save his brother."

Adoamros scowled fiercely at Sam. "Is this true?"

"Some wizard," Sam panted weakly, his sweaty bangs clinging to his forehead as he looked up at the man's wild eyes. "Can't even pin us to the wall… have to use cuffs… I've beaten better witches than you."

"Shut up, boy, or your tongue will be next."

"Thought you wanted to have fun," Sam taunted. Dean watched him, breathing shallowly to ward off the pain, silently willing him to continue as long as he could, to distract the wizard from Brenna and whatever her crazy plan was. "Thought you had all the answers."

"Or maybe your throat," Adoamros narrowed his eyes, angling the blade at Sam's jugular.

"Doesn't matter," Sam said. "You'll lose. You kill me, kill my brother, and you'll still lose."

"No," Adoamros cried, lunging closer. "No, he wouldn't have led me astray. You are the last. You must be the last."

Sam licked his bottom lip, his eyes meeting Dean's over the wizard's shoulder. Dean saw in that harried, exhausted gaze a look of honest gratitude. It surged through him, offering him renewed strength that was steadily seeping from him as he bled out from the supernatural effects of the wizard's spell.

"She was right," Sam said, still looking at Dean. "He gave up his soul. For me."

"No!" Adoamros raged, lunging forward with the knife.

Sam flinched away, drawing his legs up quickly to knock the wizard off balance, deflecting what would have been a deep stab into his belly to a slice across his thigh. Dean screamed in pain, hearing his brother's own cry echoing his, drowning out the ever-present sound of the wizard's music, drowning out the shout of denial from Brenna, drowning out the sound of his own heart.

"Stop!" Brenna cried. "No more!"

Dean felt the heat before he registered what had happened. Slumped to his side, his lower back pressed against the support beam, his wounded shoulder and damaged body spilling blood onto the dirt floor of the cave, Dean saw the darkness chased away by a surge of light. He blinked in surprise, not comprehending at first. He saw Sam duck instinctively. He saw the wizard stumble backwards, landing on his rear and catching himself with his hands, his mouth agape.

Then he saw Brenna.

Her eyes were predatory wide, her face pale, her shackled hands spread, fingers trembling. He realized then what she'd done; it had happened before, back at Declan's bar before the IRA burned it to the ground. Glass had shattered as a surge of power shot from Brenna without control. This time, though, it appeared she'd focused the power surge, spreading the fire from the lit candles to catch the wicks on the dormant ones and surrounding them with heat and light.

"What… what…" the wizard sputtered.

"Take me," Brenna said, her voice oddly calm. "Leave them, and take me. Together we will bring him back."

"Brenna, no," Dean pleaded. "No, don't do this."

"How is this possible?" Adoamros stood, clutching the dagger tightly. "How are you possible."

"I was born this way," Brenna replied.

"Brenna," Dean whispered, unable to do more than lift his head. He was spinning, his body sinking, shaking, weakening.

She met his eyes, and he saw her. Just her, no powers, no sight, no druid history. For one heartbeat of time he once more felt her lips brush his skin, heard the promise in her sigh, lost himself inside of her.

"A chuisle mo chroí," she whispered.

"Don't you do that," Dean growled. "Don't you dare say goodbye to me."

"No," Sam cried, desperate, angry. "She's crazy. She's lying. She can't help you."

"You realize they are already gone," Adoamros said quietly, his eyes on Brenna, his back to Sam.

Dean could see the man's profile, see him weighing his options, see that he was, in fact, completely sane in this moment.

"Gone?" Brenna choked out.

"The spell has already taken hold," the wizard gestured to Dean. "He is bleeding out. He won't last much longer. And then the other will no longer wish to live. Not after seeing his… brother… perish."

"No," Brenna sobbed. "Just… take me. Make it stop."

Adoamros lifted a shoulder. "I will take you," he nodded, "but I cannot stop it. The spell has been cast; their fates are sealed."

"No!" Brenna bucked against her bonds as the wizard drew closer. "No, not again. Not again!"

"Brenna," Dean called, drawing her eyes. "You fight!"

"You said it had already happened," she cried, flinging herself away from Adoamros as he released her wrists from the shackles, her arms falling uselessly to her sides, her circulation cut off. "You said what I saw was the past."

Dean's heart caught at the base of his throat, and he struggled to push himself up on his elbow, his arm shaking, his vision swimming. "You fight!"

Brenna kicked out at the wizard, trying to crawl away. Dean saw her try without success to raise her arms in defense as the wizard reached for her. Cursing, bucking, biting, she fought, but he was stronger.

"Dean," she sobbed as the wizard gathered her up, throwing her over his shoulder.

"I'm gonna find you," Dean promised. "I'll find you."

Adoamros turned toward him, Brenna held tightly in his grip, and pulled the small remote from his pocket, silencing the relentless music. "Not in this lifetime you won't."

With that, he turned, stepped into a shadowed alcove and was gone.

For a moment, neither brother moved. Gravity exerted its will against Dean, pulling his rapidly weakening body to the ground with a stifled cry.

"Sam," he mumbled as the candles burned around them.

"Yeah," Sam replied, his voice ragged, his breathing shallow.

Dean tried to swallow, coughed instead, then groaned, "No matter what, you better not just give up and stop living."

"No, man, no… you're not… don't you give in, Dean."

Dean tried to find his brother in the soft light, tried to focus on the direction Sam's voice was coming from, but the world was a blur of muted colors and dying light, the edges of his vision graying out and caving in like a collapsing tunnel.

"No regrets, Sammy," he slurred. "I'd do it 'gain, all 'f it."

"NO!" Sam cried, for one moment jarring his vision clear. "You do not decide to die, Dean. Don't trust the pain, okay? Don't you believe it. It isn't real."

Dean swallowed, licking his dry lips sluggishly, the coppery smell of his own blood strong in his nostrils. "Think 'ts pretty damn real, Sammy…"

"Dean…"

"Beat 'em after all, bastr'ds," he smiled weakly, closing his eyes. "Din't get me, Sammy… Din't get me."

The last sound he registered before the edges around him closed in completely was the sound of his brother sobbing his name.

www

"Goddammit, Dean! Don't you fuckin' do this! You don't!"

Sam had been scrambling to get the tip of his knife blade into position since Brenna started distracting the wizard.

"DEAN! Open your damn eyes right the hell now!"

He'd nicked the palm of his hand and the inside of his wrist so many times at this point, his arms were sliding inside the bindings on his own blood. He closed his eyes, unable to see the limp, blood-soaked form of his brother lying so near him, yet still too far away. He pictured the lock, positioning the point of the blade into the ancient hole better suited for a skeleton key than a Hibben throwing knife.

"It can't be real, Dean," he said, more to keep himself focused than with any real hope that his too-still brother could hear him. "It's a spell. Spells can be broken. We can break them." Twist, slip, turn, press. "Like the bruises, man. The bruises from the dream. Don't believe it."

He almost stopped breathing when he felt the lock give, the clasp on his right wrist falling away. His mantra of don't believe it, don't believe it slapped him in the face as he flipped around to unlock his left hand and felt the pull of his sliced skin stretch painfully with the movement. The benefit of sight sped up the process and in moments he was free and scrambling over to Dean on arms that trembled from strain and tingled from loss of circulation.

"Hey, man," Sam sliced the bindings from Dean's wrists, dropping the knife and the ropes in a pile next to them. "I'm here, okay, I'm here."

He winced, hissing in pain as his own wounds protested harshly when he pulled Dean's pliant form up, uselessly looking for something to press his hand against and stop the blood that still flowed freely from Dean's limp body.

"Please, man, not yet, okay?" Sam felt the tears burn the back of his eyes as he helplessly cradled Dean's head against the hollow of his shoulder, his brother's blood quickly soaking his own torn shirt and dirty jeans. "We've got time. We still have time. I'm not ready, Dean."

Sam found it impossible to swallow past the lump in his throat and curled around his brother as a sob tumbled loose. He tucked Dean's head beneath his chin and began to rock slowly, fighting a useless battle against angry, helpless tears. His body thrummed with aches deeper than his bruised, bloody wrists, deeper than the bizarrely blood-free slices on his arms, leg, and torso. It was an ache that no balm could heal.

"I can feel you breathing, Dean," he said softly, his voice a weak plea. "If you're breathing, you're alive. Okay? You're alive. You keep breathing. With me, okay? We'll do it together. Dean?"

Dean's breath continued to shudder shallowly against Sam's bared chest, skimming the cuts and slices left behind by the diamond blade.

"I ever tell you how I used to do that when we were little?" Sam continued to rock, holding his brother's too-pale face close to him, gripping his body tightly. "I'd wake up, and I wouldn't know if Dad was there or not. And I couldn't remember what town we were in, or what hotel. But you, man, you were always there. And I'd breathe with you. Slow and easy. Steady, like now. I'd match my breath to yours until I fell asleep."

Sam moved his free hand to the slick, sticky mess that was Dean's chest, resting it there and feeling the clammy texture of his brother's skin beneath his hand.

"Slow and easy, man."

Time slipped past, fluid, invisible, controlling everything with relentless patience, folding around Sam as he fought for purchase on the slippery slope of his emotions. He felt the weight of his brother in his arms, felt the cool of Dean's skin, felt the subtle tremble that shook through Dean's weakened body.

"Sam?"

His voice was barely audible, but to Sam it was as if Dean had shouted in his ear.

"Hey," Sam said, looking down as a renegade tear dripped from the tip of his nose and splashed against Dean's cheek. "Hey, man."

"'s it… raining?"

"No, we're in the cave, Dean."

"Cave?"

"Remember? Freaky wizard? Spell? Knife?"

Dean's eyelids fluttered as he fought to open them. "Brenna…"

"He took her, Dean."

Dean groaned, pushing weakly against Sam. "'m bleedin'."

"Yeah, I know, man."

"Not real, 's it?"

Sam grabbed that statement like a lifeline, rubbing Dean's blood-soaked chest with the flat of his hand, trying to restore warmth to the chilled skin beneath his.

"No, Dean, it's not real. It's the spell."

"Cut you."

Sam nodded, though Dean's eyes weren't yet opened. He hadn't thought about that. If Dean stopped bleeding, would he start?

"I'll be okay."

Dean opened his eyes at that. "How do you know?" he asked, his voice steady, his eyes clearing as he pinned Sam with a no bullshit look.

"I… I don't know for sure. But…" Sam shrugged with helpless hope, "if you believe you'll stop bleeding, I'll believe I won't start."

"That makes about as much sense as any of this."

Sam pulled Dean's tattered shirt open, swallowing at the slick sound the blood made as the material pulled away from his brother's skin. Rolling Dean to him, he tugged the sleeve free, wiping a patch of skin clean, and breathing out with shuddering gratitude when it wasn't immediately resurfaced with red.

"They hurt?" Dean asked. He still hadn't moved away from Sam, content, it seemed, to lay in the safety of his brother's grip.

"They sting, that's for sure."

"Feel like crap," Dean whispered, his eyes sliding closed again.

"Don't look much better," Sam said, sniffing. "Even if we… somehow stop this bleeding, you lost a helluva lot of blood, Dean. We have to get you to a hospital."

"We gotta find her first," Dean protested, his eyes snapping open.

"Hey, man, you're in no shape to—"

"Sam, please," Dean said, pushing against his brother, trying to sit up on his own, and failing. "Please, help me find her. I can't… I can't lose someone else." He closed his eyes, then after a breath, opened them, staring up at Sam. "I can't," he repeated.

Sam nodded, feeling his heart constrict at the need he saw in his brother's eyes. He pressed the palm of his hand back onto Dean's chest, covering his brother's heart.

"We'll get her, man," he promised softly. "We'll get her."

It was a struggle, but Sam managed to climb to his feet, groaning as he hauled Dean up on legs as shaky as a newborn colt. Dean leaned heavily on him, swaying dangerously even with his support.

"You came alone?" Sam asked.

"No," Dean shook his head. "No, I brought friends."

"Where are they?" Sam grunted as he gripped Dean's arm and held him tightly, propelling them both slowly forward.

"With any luck, waiting for us on the outside."

Sam felt his stomach sink as his brother trembled against him. "In my experience, there's no such thing as luck."

---

a/n: Thanks to everyone who has followed me thus far. I have this story fairly mapped out now: seven chapters. The next two will be similar in length to this, with an epilogue to close it out. Tara, there's a scene in here dedicated to you. I hope you recognize it. If not, then, um, pretend I didn't say anything.

Playlist:

Touched by VAST

Alive by Pearl Jam

Fall of Man by Matthew Good Band

Get Out Alive by Three Days Grace (Phoenix, if you're reading, you'd love this one)

Translations:

A chuisle mo chroí. Pulse of my heart.