Come For You

Author: Cheryl W.

Disclaimer: I do not own Dean, Sam or any rights to Supernatural, Nickelback or Scott Stapp's songs, nor am I making any profit from this story.

Author's Note: Ok, a little backtracking here at the start so we get Sam POV, then we'll get caught up to where last chapter ended. I just couldn't figure out how to break down the chapter so it turned out a little longer than the first one. And I'm so flattered by the slew of reviews on the first chapter! I had given myself the pep speech before posting about not getting discouraged if hardly anyone reviewed and then I was blessed with 26 reviews! Thanks so much for all your kind words of support for this story! And I loved getting all the favorite and following notifications too!

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Chapter Two: Trading Up

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'Even when you feel so low like you might let go

I will be the first hand reaching out

I will be the last one giving up on you"

It wasn't logical and Dean would call him a girl for it but it was hard for Sam to watch Dean walk out the door without him these days. And yeah, some of that apprehension was about the Mark's influence on his brother… but not all of it. There were still times when Sam woke up in a cold sweat, memories washing over him of Dean dying in his arms, the weight of his brother's lifeless body as he carried him into the bunker, the terror of seeing Dean's eyes soullessly black and hearing his brother say words he never would utter. Not to him. Never to him.

Dean might have thought he had exaggerated, errored on the side of drama queen antics, but Sam knew how true his "I can't live through that again" declaration to Dean had been. Because he couldn't do it again, any of it, Dean dying…or Dean turning into a demon. And it was his job to make sure that didn't happen, that he didn't fail Dean again, push him away …hurt Dean so badly that he became reckless. Ok, more reckless than he already was.

But even with that vow humming through his soul, Sam wasn't egotistical or delusional enough to think Dean would always be OK if he were with him, not with the life, the work they did. 'But I need to be with him to at least have the chance to try and save him.' Not like last time. 'Just get there in time to see Metatron sink an angel sword in Dean's chest, helpless to do anything else other than watch the light fade in my brother's eyes.'

Shaking those dark memories from his head, Sam realized that Dom's voice had turned insistent, which meant the fellow hunter had been expecting a response from him for a while now. "What?" was Sam's articulate comeback.

Dom, sporting a close cropped buzz cut, tattoos on his forearm and boasting a round chest Sam thought might be more muscle than flab, gave Sam a smirk. "Glad my life isn't in your hands today," his words unknowingly praying on Sam's inner doubt of his abilities to keep Dean safe. Keep anyone safe these days. Dom's head tilted as if in contemplation, a strange look for a guy who looked more beach bum than Aristotle. "Where you at, Sam? 'Cause it sure isn't on this research."

"Ah, yeah, sorry," Sam offered with a smile Dean would have known was as fake as their FBI badges. "You find something?" trying to get his head back into the game, into tracking down the Vetalas who were making their way across Idaho's southern counties.

Dom tapped his laptop screen. "Just a month old police report tied into some obits I found. Sounds like vics of our Vetalas pair: unidentifiable venom in their system, blood gone, bodies dumped. More proof that our Vetalas have been eating their way down Idaho's potato country."

"And we're just following their sloppy trail," Sam deduced with a disheartened sigh as he ran his hand down his face, had started to hate this particular job…the second Dean walked out the door without him. "So the crime scene Michele and Dean are at, did the coroner determine time of death on the three bodies found there? Maybe we're close to catching up with them."

Dom ruffled through his handwritten pages scattered across his bed before he apparently found the right one. "I interviewed the coroner and the time of death for them was…..oldest was a month ago and earliest was….ah, crap, still two weeks ago." Crumbling the paper in his hand in frustration, he tossed it to the floor. "We're two weeks behind them. All we can hope is that Michele and Dean find us a lead from the scene."

To Sam, that was his opening to call Dean for an update. He had been trying to think of a reason to reach out to Dean, to settle the nagging anxiousness blooming in his chest, to hear his brother's voice and quiet the voices in his own head whispering dire pessimistic outcomes for the day. But neither his anxiety or the voices in his head died down when his call to Dean didn't go through. He wasn't even granted a recorded sample of his brother's voice, just got that generic 'out of service area' phone company recording.

"Can't get through?" Dom posed, his lips turned up into a goading smirk that Sam wanted to beat off the other man's face. "Yeah, Michele said the cell reception was spotty out there. We always seemed to lose connection the closer she got to the crime scene. So we're on our own." Then he refocused on his laptop like Sam no longer existed in the room.

Dom's explanation, it didn't reassure Sam like it should have. Maybe because Dom was so quick to offer up that information, didn't let him squirm and freak out with worry. Didn't bust Sam's chops about being 'scaredy without big bro there to hold his hand' like he mocked the last hunt they teamed up for. And, ok, maybe Dom had just decided not to be a jerk 100% of the time…except Sam knew guys like Dom and being a jerk was what they truly excelled at. Truth be told, Michele was the real hunter in the duo, was the only reason Dom hadn't been some monster's BBQ picnic dinner. His brawn notwithstanding, his lack of hunter skills, more times than not, always got him assigned research duty.

'Right along with me.' And that rankled Sam a bit, getting benched with Dom while Dean got to go on a road trip, pick up the Vetalas trail in person. Without him. Unconsciously, Sam rubbed his neck where the Vetalas he had tangled with years ago had sunk her teeth into him for a mid-day snack, sending venom coursing through his blood stream. Knew he was lucky that he had only taken two hits of venom…unlike the corpses the Vetalas had sloppily discarded around the work shop space.

Sam stiffened in his chair. 'Multiple bites…that's a Vetala's style. To get at least three hits of blood maybe four from each victim. To savor their meal…keep them around for days.' Hands flying across the laptop keys, Sam pulled up the pictures Dom or Michele had taken of the latest victim at the morgue, zoomed in on the shots of the necks…that showed only a single but messy, bite mark. With a few more keystrokes, he brought up the autopsy from the earlier vics in the county. Found the same thing: single bite mark site. 'Not like a Vetala attack.' And it was on the tip of Sam's tongue to tell Dom his discovery but he chose to stay silent instead. To be silent and to distrust.

Distrust because his gut was telling him he was missing something, because Michele and Dom should have realized this wasn't a Vetala's MO as quickly as he did, especially since Michele had made it her life's ambition to track down all Vetalas and end them. Distrust because there was only one person in the world Sam trusted and that person happened to share DNA with him. Even with the Mark on Dean, Sam trusted his brother's good heart, had had faith that, if he gave Dean that sanctified blood and helped him in his fight to be himself again, Dean's heart would do the rest, would do, not what was best for Dean, but what was best for Sam. After all, that was what Dean had ingrained his heart to do all these years: to save Sam.

So since Dom wasn't his brother and the guy was acting almost civic, which was totally out of character for him, Sam let his conclusions go unsaid while his suspicions grew. Forced himself to wait twenty minutes before he suggested Dom hit the grocery store across the street for food for lunch, said it disinterestedly, his head down, his eyes glued to his laptop screen like he was on a hot trail of a lead instead of stewing in his own boiling trepidation.

Surging from the chair nearly the second Dom shut the door behind him, Sam crossed over to Dom's bag and began searching it, for what, he didn't know, did the same for Michele's and came up with the same nothing. Pulling the curtain back from the window, he saw Dom enter the grocery store and was instantly out the door to Dom's car, popping the trunk. Easily finding the opening to their weapon's stash, Sam rummaged through their arsenal, came up with nothing noteworthy. Closing the trunk, he crossed to the driver's side door and sank into the seat, dug through the glove compartment, under the seats, between the seats, all with nothing sparking his interest. Stepping from the front seat he slid into the passengers' seat behind it, did the same meticulous search. Almost didn't see the importance of the receipt he found jammed under the front passenger's seat. Was about to shove it back under the seat when one word caught his notice: Tulsa.

And from that point, the receipt became a mecca of clues that made Sam's breath catch. Gas station receipt for Tulsa, Oklahoma…on the same exact date Dean wiped out that vampire nest solo. That the station's address was just down the road from the nest and the time on the receipt was a few hours after Dean cleaned house would have been an acceptable coincidence for a pair of hunters, if Dom hadn't told him he and Michele had been on this Vetala hunt for a solid month there in Idaho. Dom had lied to him. And Sam was certain that it wasn't the first one.

Though he was fighting hard to not jump to far flung conclusions, the fact that Dean wasn't answering his phone, that it had been Dom's idea Dean go meet up with Michele, when every other time Dom had acted like a jealous husband and made a big stink if he couldn't stick close to Michele if Dean was in her near vicinity, that there Vetala hunt was actually….. "Oh crap," Sam muttered aloud as the pieces fell into place. Because their Vetala hunt was actually a vampire hunt.

All of a sudden, Michele's absence made sick sense. If they were truly after a Vetala, the rule was to hunt by pairs and not split up and yet, Michele and Dom weren't together when he and Dean arrived. Michele was supposedly at the crime scene…by herself. Wanted Dean to join her…not Dom.

Receipt in hand, he slipped out of the car, shut the door and stalked for the motel room. Entering he headed to the small refrigerator, yanked the door open and looked in the freezer compartment, knew his suspicions weren't wrong when there wasn't a single carton of ice cream there. Ice cream was Michele's addiction, she had traded up heroin for it five years ago when she and Dom hooked up and had taken up hunting. She didn't make it through a hunt…a day without a bowl of it, Sam had seen that for himself. And now there was none…in a room with Michele's bag. 'Like she switched up one addiction for another…Fudge Ripple for …blood.'

Growling out a vicious curse of fear and self –loathing for not figuring this out sooner, Sam quickly crossed the room to his bag. But it took less than two seconds for him to determine his gun wasn't in the bag's depths like it had been last night. And neither was his machete and his favorite knife, leaving him weaponless. Punching the wall in fury, he fought the urge to storm into the grocery story, track Dom down and beat him to a pulp until he told him where his brother was because, of yeah, he didn't have the address that Dom sent Dean to. And it had been kind of weird, even at the time, Dom being so helpful and prepared, him handing Dean a folded map with the crime scene supposedly all marked on it. A map Sam hadn't seen, and the location wasn't marked on any of the maps Dom had pasted up on the motel room walls.

It was so clear now what all this had been from the very start: a trap for Dean. Pay back for killing that nest. For Dean unknowingly killing the vampire nest that apparently had turned Michele. Good old fashioned revenge and he never saw it coming, sent out a pray that Dean had because if he lost his brother again, to death or the Mark's hold, he would teach Dom and Michele the true meaning of insufferable pain.

"If you leave, tell me where you'd go?

Would you lock yourself inside a place,

so no one had the chance to face you on your own "

When Dom reentered the motel room, Sam was in the same position he was when he left: at the table, hunched over his laptop like it had answers. Dropping the grocery bag on the small counter space by the sink, he announced, "Lunch ain't served. Get it yourself."

Not looking up from his concentration on the computer screen, Sam replied, "Just need a drink, that's all."

With a sigh, Dom dug in the bag, came out with a soda bottle and was about to toss it to Sam when he realized Winchester still had his nose tucked in his computer. Taking three steps forward, Dom slammed the bottle down on the table beside Sam's laptop and in that instant, Sam made his move.

Even as he surged to his feet, Sam latched onto Dom's wrist, twisted the hunter's arm behind his back and used his other hand to slam Dom's face into the Formica tabletop with enough force to break the other man's nose. To Dom's credit, he choked down his cry of pain and kicked out, savagely sending his steel enforced boot heel into Sam's knee.

Sam's leg crumbled at the abuse, giving Dom the opening to pull his knife from its sheath in his waist and blindly make a right hand swipe behind him, hoping to score a cut across Sam's torso. Defensively, Sam pushed himself away from Dom before the knife could find its mark and quickly hobbled back five steps. He watched as Dom turned to face him, never lost sight of the knife the fellow hunter wielded. Knew that now was the best time to get answers ..when Dom thought he was in control, had good odds that he could win this fight.

"There never was any Vetalas, was there? Vampires dropped the bodies here in Idaho," Sam said as he shuffled to the right as Dom moved to the left, looking for an opening to attack.

Dom gave Sam his condescending smirk that Sam had always hated. "The way you Winchesters brag yourselves up, you'd think you wrote the book on monster hunting…and yet you and your brainless brother couldn't figure out the distinction between a Vetala and a Vampire hunt."

Sam's jaw clenched at Dom's insult because it was partially true, he hadn't figured this out as soon as he should have. Dom saw the moment of self-chastisement as a green light to lunge forward, intent on sticking the knife in Sam's gut. But Sam easily knocked Dom's arm away, grabbed hold of Dom's shirt and pulled the man toward him, right into a head butt followed by a backhanded slap that sent Dom tumbling to the floor.

Sam didn't follow up his advantage, let Dom scamper away and regain his feet, needed Dom still in a talking mood…not unconscious or dead. Now it was Sam who offered Dom a condescending smile, "Aaaww. Poor Dom. Michele's not here to fight your battles for you, you want to beg for mercy awhile or hold out another few minutes?"

With a roar of rage, Dom tackled Sam and Sam allowed it, felt the breath knocked out of him when he impacted with the floor, Dom's not inconsiderable weight on top of him. Then he was latched onto Dom's right wrist, held back the knife point from plunging into his eye. "Michele got turned, didn't she? By the nest that Dean took out in Tulsa."

"You got the brains in your family," Dom chuckled back not exactly meaning it as a compliment for Sam but another slam against Dean. Went to punch Sam across the cheek to distract him but Sam blocked the blow with his forearm, then sent his elbow careening into Dom's temple, toppling the man off him.

Climbing to his feet before Dom could, Sam kicked the hunter's right hand, dislodging the knife from Dom's hold and sending it skittering across the floor to settle under the night stand, out of both of their reaches. Then Dom was up, fists raised like he had any chance whatsoever of delivering a knockout blow to Sam. But Sam did his part in encouraging Dom's fantasy, backed away like he feared the man's boxing skills.

"And instead of taking out the nest that turned Michele…you what? Let her play house with them?!" Sam bitingly prodded. He gave a dark humorless chuckle, "I always told Dean that Michele wore the pants in your relationship, that you couldn't think for yourself. That you'd cross any line if she asked you too. Were too weak to make it without her." And part of Sam understood the irony of the situation, that his psychological take on Dom…it fit him to a T too. That for Dean, he would …he had crossed many a line and would continue to do so to keep Dean human and with him. That, like he had told Charlie, he couldn't do this job that he had finally accepted that he loved, wouldn't want to do it anymore, if Dean wasn't at his side.

Districted by his sharp spike of worry for his brother, Sam almost didn't react in time to Dom's enraged charge. Almost. He caught Dom under the chin with his infamous uppercut that had the reputation of knocking even Dean on his can. It didn't disappoint this time either, took Dom off his feet and down onto the carpeted floor. And Sam took advantage of Dom's weakness this time, was done playing weak in a ploy to gain answers. Leaning over Dom, he easily knocked away the other man's attempted right cross and delivered one of his own, followed by yet another and another until Dom's face was bloody and his eyes were dropping shut. It took just one more punch to send Dom into oblivion.

"Cuz when we fall down, we can stay down

But the freedom that we wanna find,

is only found when we're off the ground."

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When Dom came to, he found his head was pounding like a mother, his arms were tied behind him, he was bound to the motel chair and Sam Winchester was leaning against the countertop, his own knife in Winchester's hand and his cell phone in Sam's other hand.

"Good, you're awake. Bet Michele will take your call. You better pray she hasn't hurt my brother," Sam directed at him with a lethalness that Dom had never witnessed in the younger Winchester before. And that it seemed to somehow top Dean's ability to put shivers down Dom's spine wasn't a comforting revelation.

Then Sam held the phone to his ear, opening the conversation with Michele with a chilling "That better mean that my brother's alive or else I'll slit Dom's throat right here and now," and the look Sam leveled at Dom gave the other hunter little hope that it was a baseless threat.

Sam felt his insides tightened at the silence that came through the phone lines at his threat. His fears took hold, tried to convince him that Michele was speechless because Dean was already dead, that she didn't have a living breathing prisoner to offer up in exchange for Dom. He only inhaled again when Michele finally made a reply.

"He's alive but I was right in the middle of changing that status when you called," Michele revealed, a playful ring to her not so veiled threat. But Dean saw what Sam couldn't, the contradiction between Michele's brave words and her worried expression. Dean couldn't hold back a proud, smug smile. Sam was coming for him, just like he knew he would and Michele's days were numbered.

Hand tightening its grip on the phone, Sam dangerously vowed, "You hurt him and Dom's dead before I hang up the phone."

Straightening her shoulders, Michele let her new vampiric strength and ego smother her fear of Sam Winchester. "Oops. Too late on that point," she merrily drawled, smiled at Sam's angry roar that filtered out of the cell phone speakers.

"If I don't hear Dean's voice in the next five seconds, you're gonna hear Dom choking on his own blood." His ears already straining to hear his brother's voice in the background of the call, some proof that Michele hadn't lied, that Dean wasn't already dead by her hands.

"You want proof of life…fine," Michele too amicably agreed right before she suddenly was bending over Dean, reached down and gave the protruding rebar in Dean's side a good yank to the right again. Dean tried to stifle his cry of agony but knew he did a piss poor job, especially when he heard Sam's anxious shout of his name come through the cellphone connection.

"Dean!" tore from Sam's throat without his permission, destroying his plan to be stoic. He wanted to reach through the phone and behead Michele with his bare hands when she rejoined their conversation with a trilling laugh.

"And Dean was trying so hard to be the macho man for me. Guess you bring down all his barriers, Sam," Michele taunted, stepping back from Dean, liked seeing the so strong Winchester again slumping forward, trying to breathe through his agony. Got a thrill out of knowing she now had the power to bring both Winchesters to their knees.

Gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached, Sam snarled, "Dean took your new family away from you and I'll gladly take away your old one." Forcing himself to calm down, to outthink Michele, he dropped the menace from his voice, adopted a tone of cold certainty. "From personal experience, I know vampires don't take being alone well, get all moody and needy. End up getting sloppy, which makes them easy targets for even piss poor hunters like Dom to track down and take out. And an ex-hunter turned vampire…I can't say getting adopted into a new nest looks hopeful for you."

"Wow, sounds like you're really concerned for my future. That's so sweet, Sam. Maybe I just turn Dean, make him my new family," Michele volleyed back to cover her misgivings on her future, didn't dare look to Dean because he knew she had had her chance to turn him and he had scared her into vetoing the idea.

Dean was torn between shouting so Sam could hear him or keeping quiet, letting Sam handle things any way he saw fit without him distracting him. And it struck him then, how the roles were reversed now. He was the one in the hot seat and Sam held his life in his hands. 'Like I did when Cole had Sam, threatened to slit his throat.' A tsunami of shame washed over Dean at the memory of his conversation with Cole, how he had reacted when Cole said he had Sam, would kill him if Dean didn't show up.

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"There's no trade, no meet up, no nothing except the 100% guaranty that somewhere down the road I will find you and I will kill you."

"That will be cold comfort to your dead brother," Cole had come back with but the threat meant very little to Dean.

"I told him to let me go so whatever jam he's in now, that's his problem. 'cause Sam knows me and if there's one thing I am, I am a man of my word"

"I'll pass that onto him as I'm slitting his throat."

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And Dean. Had. Hung. Up. The. Phone.

Ended the call knowing Cole's intentions, that Sam's life would be taken if he didn't come for him, meet up with Cole…and he hadn't. Come for Sam. But Sam was going to come for him, was going to come for him even knowing that he was walking into a trap, that it could cost him his life. That Dean wasn't going to die… well, stay dead, no matter what Michele did, didn't factor into Sam's thoughts, only saving Dean from death, from becoming again a Knight of Hell, mattered to his little brother.

And Dean didn't want Sam walking into the lion's den for him, of reenacting the scenes in the Bunker: him with a hammer in his hand, his brother's skull his 'x-marks the spot' and Sam…Sam dropping Ruby's knife he had poised at his throat for a fatal blow. His brother had been unwilling to kill him, as evil as he was, not even to save his own life.

So Dean couldn't trust Sam to safeguard his own life, not in this instance, not when his life was up for grabs. But he knew he couldn't stop Sam from coming, didn't honestly want to but wanted to at least give his brother some helpful information that could keep him alive. "Warehouse ten miles outside Goodling! We're in the basement and she just fed, Sam!" he shouted, hopefully loud enough for Sam to hear him from Michele's cellphone.

Michele backhanded him for his outburst but he smiled as he leaned his head back against the wall. He had given Sam fair warning about her strength and enough of their location. Sam could do wonders with just that.

Hearing Dean's voice instead of his brother's cry of pain helped to dissipate a large portion of Sam's fear, not to mention bolstered his fortified to get his brother back. Lowly, he hissed into the phone, "We are going to make an exchange, Dean for Dom, and they are both gonna be alive. And if you even mention turning Dean, I'll kill Dom right here and now and go after your little cousin, Melanie. She's still living in Oregon right, just a few hours and I can be knocking on your aunt's door," Sam heartlessly threatened.

In her rage, Michele's fangs dropped into place and she gave an inhuman growl that wasn't very settling for Dean's nerves. But she directed all her anger toward Sam. "Stay away from her, Sam! She's an innocent!"

"Then bring my brother back to me and she stays safe!" Sam growled, waited a few beats before he proposed, "We can meet in Jerome on Route 26…"

Realizing that Sam had her backed into a corner, Michele was willing to agree to the meet …and would rip Sam Winchester's throat out while Dean helplessly watched. And her vengeance would be nearly complete. She was playing with the idea of letting Dean stew in his grief awhile after that before she finished him off. But then Sam's words brought her back to the problem at hand and she interrupted. "You want your brother alive, we meet here in Goodling, in that warehouse, just where your brother told you we were."

"No, my terms, my location…" Sam protested.

"I move him…he dies, Sam," Michele dispassionately declared but she gave Dean an amused smile. "Your clumsy brother got himself impaled on some rebar. Here…a picture's worth a thousand words…" then she held the phone up and took a picture of Dean, sitting on the floor, his lips bloody from her beatings and a bloody stain spreading from his side around the protruding piece of rebar. Then she texted it to Dom's phone.

When the phone dinged, Sam knew he shouldn't open the picture, that it would give Michele an advantage over him but he couldn't not open it, had to see his brother. For the first time, he cursed the sharp clarity of the cell phone's pictures, with the quality of the pixels he could see the blood.. the rebar in his brother's side and Dean's pale complexion all too well.

"My advice to you is ….don't take your time, Sam. Or else he'll die before you get here to say your goodbyes and I won't get to rip his throat out. And that'll put us both in bad moods." Abruptly ending the call there, Michele hated that her hand shook a little when she slid the phone back into her pocket, hated it more that Dean didn't miss her display of fear.

"Hey, I'll be shaking in my boots too if I had Sam coming for me," Dean drawled with false commiseration. "Truth is, I've lost more fights with Sam than I've won…and if you tell him that, I'll kill you."

"Shut up!" Then Michele stumped up the stairs and Dean finally had the privacy to release the moan of agony he had been holding in and let his breathing go ragged instead of the even breaths he had performed in her presence. No use letting her know how far gone he was. Or Sam. Because Sam didn't need to worry more about him than he already was. Needed to concentrate on keeping himself alive and outsmarting Michele, which wasn't going to be easy considering her hunter knowledge, her personal knowledge of his and Sammy's tactics, her new strength and sense of smell, and her home court advantage. Sam could take it from him, Michele set a dang fine trap. 'Well, her and Dom. I hope Sam tears that SOB a new butthole for his part in this.'

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Sam fought the urge to throw Dom's cellphone across the room, settled for slamming it on the table before he came to loom over Dom. Looking down at the bound hunter, he demanded darkly, "Where's this warehouse at, exact location."

"I'll tell you on the way," Dom bargained with a swaggering grin…that instantly drained off his face when Sam pressed the blade against his throat hard enough to draw blood and stifle Dom's freedom to draw in a breath.

"Tell me the location now and where my weapons are," Sam venomously countered, putting more pressure on the knife blade.

"I have to be alive for the trade!" Dom sputtered. "That's the deal you made."

Sam crouched down so his gaze impaled Dom's. "I don't give a crap what I promised your whore vampire. It's up to me if you ever walk out of here. So where's the warehouse and my weapons?"

Though Dom had been betting on Michele to be the victor in today's showdown, part of him started to lose faith, not only in her new vampire invincibility but in her love for him. Especially since she hadn't agree to the trade him for Dean until Sam threatened, not just his life, but also her niece's. "Warehouse's on a dirt road west off of Route 46. Follow the signs for Gooding City of Rocks and you'll pass right by it. And your weapons are in the room next door." He gave a small jerk of his head to the right to indicate the motel room #12.

With that new information, Sam pulled the knife from Dom's throat, grabbed a dish rag off the table and tied it nice and tight around Dom's mouth so shouting for help wasn't possible. Then he hurriedly headed to the other room to get his weapons. He had a brother to save and little time to do it in.

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When the music in the warehouse abruptly ended with a crash overhead and the song's tempo was replaced by footfalls of pacing, Dean let that go on for twenty minutes, gave Sam time to get nearly there before he called out, hoping his voice reached up the stairs, "Someone seems nervous." The pacing stopped but when his taunt didn't garner Michele's reappearance, he upped the ante. "Don't know if we ever told you this but…there is a cure for vampirism. Well, if you abstain…which, by the number of bodies in the morgues in Idaho that you claimed Vetalas did in, you traded up ice cream for blood to cure that hunger you still have for heroin. Baby, I think this is one addiction you won't cure with a sweet tooth," he mockingly forecast.

And that did it, got her to come down the stairs, her eyes dark with the Latino spirit he had admired in her so many times before. "But hey, maybe this is the addiction to beat all addictions. No more ice cream, no more heroin cravings…no more guilt about standing your sister up to see that movie together because you wanted to hang out with some nose and eyebrow pierced guy, the same night Rosie never came home, got waylaid by a pair of Vetalas."

Again the claws of Michele's right hand dug into Dean's throat. "How do you know that?" she seethed.

It took effort to talk around her hold but Dean managed it. "I checked out your story about your sister. Checked out Dom's high school BFF's autopsy too. What can I say, Sam and I don't trust easily. Needed to know you were really hunters, what drove you to be hunters, if we should work with you or not. Seems we guessed wrong on that verdict."

Michele shook her head and released Dean. "We were the ones that were stupid to hunt with you. I've got my thing going on with Vetalas, yeah, but you…you hate them all. Leave massacres in your wake like a living breathing natural disaster. My nest…that was just another day for you. Wash off the blood and look for the next thing to kill. You talk about me turning on Dom….how many times have you turned on Sam, how long until you do it again? At least Dom knows I didn't want to be this, had my choice taken away. But you….you make the choices all on your own and it's Sam who pays the consequences. If he were smart, he would leave you here for me to suck dry."

Dean had gone still and even paler at her words, at how true they were, now more than ever before. His choices hurt Sam. His decision to make the crossroad deal for Sam's life, to let Gadreel possess Sam, to take on the Mark. All things he had consciously done and to heck with the consequences. And that was why he hadn't let Sam use the Book of the Damned to try and cure him. He understood, like Sam should, how unbearable the consequences could be when they sought to blindly save each other.

Holding Michele's gaze, Dean hoarsely agreed with her, "You're absolutely right. Sam should leave me here to get ganked by you, should do to me what I did to him when the roles were reversed. But he won't."

As if to prove that point, Michele's phone rang. "You better be close because Dean's wearing on my patience."

"That's what he does best," Sam agreed, his affection for his brother and that annoying habit not hidden. "I'm about half a mile away from the warehouse but you better come quick." At that moment her phone dinged with a text of a picture…of Dom's whole car on fire on the dirt road that led up to the warehouse. "These trunks aren't that well insulted…he might die of smoke inhalation before the fire cooks him alive."

Forgetting all about Dean, Michele swore and ran for the stairs, took them two at a time, desperate to reach Dom in time.

Not privy to Sam's side of the conversation or the text picture Michele got, Dean felt frustratingly in the dark. Was worried that Sam was off going mano e mano with Michele without thinking things through, putting into consideration that Dean couldn't move, that Sam couldn't just bust in the door and sweep him away to safety like his knight in shining armor, that he was still as stuck as he had been from the start. He couldn't offer Sam any help in this fight, and worse than that, he was Sam's weakness and Michele knew it. And she would use that against Sam…just like Dean had used talk about Michele's sister to distract her until Sam could get into position, set up whatever plan he had dreamed up on his way there.

"Stay focused, Sam. Stay focused," he coached his brother, his weakening voice echoing in the empty warehouse. Knew that it wasn't beneath Michele to tell Sam he was dead just to throw Sam off his game. "Don't let her spin her web. She's a liar Sam, a hunter, a woman. She knows how to use words as weapons." And it begrudged him that he and Sam both had helped her hone her craft. 'I even let her have one of my silver knives that last hunt.' And that just heaped insult onto injury.

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Though she had increased speed due to her vampire status, Michele still feared it had taken her too long to run down the dirt road to reach the burning car. Feared Dom was dead already even as she ran to the trunk, braved the flames to slam her fist onto the trunk lock to jar it open. Even as she leaned into the smoky interior to grab a handful of a jacket, there was movement in the trunk, proof that Dom wasn't dead. But amidst the acrid smell of burning rubber and the choking smoke, the other scent that reached her senses wasn't Dom's.

Sitting up in the trunk of the car, Sam reinforced his two handed grip on his machete and swung it for all he was worth. He saw Michele's head toppling off her body through the billowing smoke. Then Sam was crawling out of the trunk, choking and coughing and nearly retching as he stumbled away from the smoke and the flames. Sinking to his knees downwind from the burning car, he wiped at his burning eyes until he could clearly make out Michele's corpse on the ground, know that the threat to Dean was over.

Well, the vampire threat. But the picture of Dean bleeding out flashed in Sam's mind, reminded him that Dean was still in danger, that if he didn't reach Dean soon and get him medical help, Michele would end up getting her revenge from Purgatory.

"Even when you feel so low like you might let go

I will be the first hand reaching out.

I will be the last one giving up on you"

When the warehouse door banged open above him, Dean had hope that it was Sam, because bull in a china shop was Sam's style, especially when he knew his brother was in danger. Then there was the sound of someone taking the stairs three at a time before Sam's long legs made an appearance in the stairway and by the time his brother's face came into view, Dean didn't bother holding back his smile. "Sammy, good to see you."

"Dean!" Sam exclaimed in the happy worried tone only he could master then he was tearing across the distance that separated them and coming to kneel beside Dean. He reached out, cupped the side of Dean's neck, "You ok?"

"Still playing on the good guys team, if that's what you're asking," Dean sallied back, found it easier to joke about his Knight of Hell days than reflect on them.

"It wasn't," Sam sternly rebuked, knew Dean thought that should be his first concern, whether Dean was still human or not, could still be trusted but for Sam all that a far second to Dean's well-being. Then he gingerly moved Dean's hand from his stomach to the floor, drew in a sharp breath at seeing the damage to his brother up close and personal.

"It's still connected to the wall. Don't suppose you brought a blow torch ..or a hacksaw?" Dean maintained his lighthearted front for his sake and Sam's.

Sam didn't dignify that with an answer, instead tentatively touched the rebar poking out of his brother's side before carefully maneuvering around Dean to see the wall behind him. When his eyes came up to meet Dean's, they were that rare intense blue hue of mounting fear and unmitigated determination. "I have to call for a fire company and paramedics."

But Dean was already shaking his head. "What? No. Just help me off this vampire spit and we'll get out of here."

"And have you bleed out?! No way, Dean." Sam pulled his phone from his pocket but Dean's bloody hand covered his. "Sam, I take it Michele's decapitated head with fangs is somewhere on the premises, there's got to be blood all over the upstairs from her earlier snack and you're splattered with blood…and smell like you were in a campfire not at one. You can't bring firemen, paramedics or cops here. Not until we're gone."

"We don't have that option Dean," Sam stridently put down Dean's objections before gently prying Dean's hand from his cellphone.

"Ok…then…. you go. I'll handle the cops' questions," was Dean's next proposition.

Sam's eyebrows rose into his hair in surprise and his face radiated down right hostility at Dean's suggestion. "Not happening Dean," he snapped his voice rising in outrage, remembered Dean saying something similar when he was bleeding out from Metatron's angel blade. "And if you tell me it's better this way…." He drew in a trembling breath before he let it out with a regaining measure of calm, knew he shouldn't ..and didn't want to yell at his seriously wounded brother. He adopted a gentle but resolute tone when he spoke next. "I'm not leaving you, Dean. So just….don't suggest that again." Then Sam was dialing 911, was bringing Goodling's small emergency forces right to them, along with cops who wouldn't buy "vampire attack" as an explanation for the carnage surrounding the Winchesters.

Call made, Sam took off his coat and tucked it around Dean, hoping to mitigate some of the cold Dean was feeling at the blood loss. Then Sam sat down on the floor on Dean's uninjured side, rested his arms on his drawn up legs and let out a shaking breath before turning his face to his brother, wished he could do something to ease the pain his brother was in. "I'm sorry I didn't figure this out sooner."

Rolling his head to face Sam, Dean gave his brother a warm smile that even his bloody, pale appearance couldn't negate. "Trust me when I say you figured it out just in time, Sammy. She was going in for the first and last feast when you called."

Sam swallowed hard at that horrifying mental picture but gave a silent nod of his head. Cleared his throat before he asked, "The blood upstairs…."

"Couple of friggin' kids who chose today to do layups here. I begged her to leave them alone but…" Dean's voce dropped off .

Though Sam knew Dean would carry the guilt of those lost lives no matter what he said, he still couldn't let it go unvoiced, "Wasn't your fault, Dean. She made her choice. To make her first kill, to keep on killing…to kill those kids."

Dean gave no signs of acceptance of his pardon and Sam fell silent, was content to sit beside Dean, even hearing his brother's labored breathing was its own encouragement because Dean was still breathing. But then Sam remembered reaching Dean after Metatron yanked his angel sword from Dean's chest, how he had pulled Dean up to rest against the wall, got Dean on his feet and moving, that he told Dean he would get him help, make everything ok….and then Dean had died in his arms.

Terrified that they were on track for that to happen all over again, Sam gave up his falsely relaxed pose and turned to his brother, reached out and grabbed Dean's hand, gripped it tight, so Dean would grip back, prove he was still with him, still fighting, that they both were. "I…I screwed up last time, shouldn't have moved you, should have called 911. Was so caught up on saving you…and ended up failing you. And I can't make the same mistakes."

Squeezing Sam's hand with what strength he had, Dean soothed, "Whoa, Sam. I don't know what you're talking about but…."
"After Metatron…after he….I shouldn't have moved you! It was stupid and rash and egotistical and I was thinking about police reports and getting you home….things that didn't matter!" Sam emotionally explained, shaking his head and looking away from Dean in shame. "But this time, I know what's important. I know my limitation. That I need other people's skills to save you."

"Sammy, hey, look at me," Dean prodded, waited until his brother's tortured eyes met his own before he continued. "It was a killing blow, Sammy. Metatron knew it…I knew it…you knew it. No 911 call was going to save me, or angel touch…or even you and your boyscout optimism," he lightly tacked on, eliciting a painful laugh from Sam that nearly cracked apart.

Making a swipe at his watery eyes, Sam vowed, "But I got you back and I'm keeping you, Dean. So screw the Mark, your long list of fans and your less than stellar ideas like hunting vampire nests on your own, not to mention your clumsiness today. You're not getting away from me that easily. "

"Clumsiness? Ouch, Sammy. Kick me when I'm down," Dean theatrically moaned in mocking hurt.

"Dean, you got shish-kebabed to a wall while being attacked by a vampire, who else does that but you."

"Good point. That vacation I talked about, I'm so going to deserve it."

"We both will," Sam vowed, proved that Dean was stuck with him through it all, every moment of the bad times until the good times arrived. That he'd make sure his brother got to live out that beach fantasy. And he'd be plopped in the sand at his side when he did.

"By the way, Sam, why is your face covered with soot, your boot heel melted and your voice sounds like you're that chain smoking mother from "Throw Momma from the Train?" Dean asked, his piercing gaze pinning Sam in place and demanding answers.

Silently Sam cursed his brother's perceptiveness and ability to ask the last questions Sam wanted to answer right then. Because there was no way Dean wouldn't flip out if he knew Sam had jumped into the trunk of a car he had set on fire to wait for Michele to show up so he could take her head. Labored breathing or not, Dean would expel his last breath reaming him out.

So it was a godsend on two fronts when Sam heard the sirens. But then the crushing reality that his brother's life would be put into someone else's hands other than his own hit him. "I gotta go direct them down here," he announced, at Dean's understanding nod, he gave Dean's hand one more squeeze before he gained his feet and raced up the stairs.

"Even when you feel your breath fading from your lungs

I will be the first hand reaching out.

I will be the first, last, first, last and only one." **

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TBC

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**The song featured in this chapter is from Scott Stapp titled "Only One"

Thanks again for such a wonderful response to the first chapter! Hope some of your enjoyed this one as well. I have a few more chapters planned for this story, so if you're interested in more, drop me a review.

Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Have a great day!

Cheryl W.